Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
November 15, 2014
Summary:
Wealthier individuals engage in healthier behavior. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by exploiting both inheritances and lottery winnings to test a theory of health behavior. We distinguish between the direct monetary cost and the indirect health cost (value of health lost) of unhealthy consumption. The health cost increases with wealth and the degree of unhealthiness, leading wealthier individuals to consume more healthy and moderately unhealthy, but fewer severely unhealthy goods. The empirical evidence presented suggests that differences in health costs may indeed partially explain behavioral differences, and ultimately health outcomes, between wealth groups.
Published in
European Economic Review
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 72 , p.197 -220
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2014.10.003
ISSN
142921
Subjects
Notes
Albert Sloman Library Periodicals *restricted to Univ. Essex registered users*
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