Journal Article
Wealth and health behavior: testing the concept of a health cost
Authors
Publication date
Nov 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
72 , 197 -220
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2014.10.003
ISSN
16
Subjects
Income Dynamics, Savings And Assets, and Health
Links
http://serlib0.essex.ac.uk/record=b1628528~S5
Notes
Albert Sloman Library Periodicals *restricted to Univ. Essex registered users*
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