IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fth/harver/2060.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Explains Differences in Smoking, Drinking and Other Health-Related Behaviors?

Author

Listed:
  • David Cutler
  • Edward Glaeser

Abstract

We explore economic model of health behaviors. While the standard economic model of health as an investment is generally supported empirically, the ability of this model to explain heterogeneity across individuals is extremely limited. Most prominently, the correlation of different health behaviors across people is virtually zero, suggest that standard factors such as variation in discount rates or the value of life are not the drivers of behavior. We focus instead on two other factors: genetics; and behavioral-specific situational factors. The first factor is empirically important, and we suspect the second is as well.

Suggested Citation

  • David Cutler & Edward Glaeser, 2005. "What Explains Differences in Smoking, Drinking and Other Health-Related Behaviors?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2060, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:fth:harver:2060
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/pub/hier/2005/HIER2060.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric French & Elaine Kelly & Richard Cookson & Carol Propper & Miqdad Asaria & Rosalind Raine, 2016. "Socio‐Economic Inequalities in Health Care in England," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 37, pages 371-403, September.
    2. Rana Ejaz Ali Khan & Muhammad Ali Raza, 2017. "Utilization of Quality Source of Prenatal-Care in India: An Evidence from IDHS," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 1163-1178, April.
    3. Anura Amarasinghe & Gerard D'Souza & Cheryl Brown & Tatiana Borisova, 2006. "A Spatial Analysis of Obesity in West Virginia," Working Papers Working Paper 2006-13, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.
    4. Kristina Burström & Magnus Johannesson & Finn Diderichsen, 2003. "The value of the change in health in Sweden 1980/81 to 1996/97," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(8), pages 637-654, August.
    5. Robert Kaestner, 1995. "The Effects of Cocaine and Marijuana Use on Marriage and Marital Stability," NBER Working Papers 5038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Martin Fischer & Martin Karlsson & Therese Nilsson, 2013. "Effects of Compulsory Schooling on Mortality: Evidence from Sweden," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-23, August.
    7. Tansel, Aysit & Keskin, Halil Ibrahim, 2017. "Education Effects on Days Hospitalized and Days out of Work by Gender: Evidence from Turkey," IZA Discussion Papers 11210, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Hongliang Wang & Yiwen Yu, 2016. "Increasing health inequality in China: An empirical study with ordinal data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(1), pages 41-61, March.
    9. Ning Xu & Chang’an Li, 2023. "Migration and Rural Sustainability: Relative Poverty Alleviation by Geographical Mobility in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-27, April.
    10. Lurås, Hilde, 2009. "A healthy lifestyle: The product of opportunities and preferences," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2001:11, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    11. Charles Hokayem & James P. Ziliak, 2014. "Health, Human Capital, and Life Cycle Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 127-131, May.
    12. de Walque, Damien, 2007. "How does the impact of an HIV/AIDS information campaign vary with educational attainment? Evidence from rural Uganda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 686-714, November.
    13. Yuri Reina-Aranza, 2015. "Violencia de pareja y estado de salud de la mujer en Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 13964, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    14. Bemile, Esther & Anders, Sven M., 2014. "Linking Diet-Health Behaviour and Obesity using Propensity Score Matching," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182832, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Joseph P. Newhouse, 2021. "An Ounce of Prevention," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 101-118, Spring.
    16. Maruyama, Shiko, 2015. "The effect of coresidence on parental health in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-22.
    17. Omar Galárraga & Sandra Sosa-Rubí & César Infante & Paul Gertler & Stefano Bertozzi, 2014. "Willingness-to-accept reductions in HIV risks: conditional economic incentives in Mexico," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(1), pages 41-55, January.
    18. Dyack, Brenda & Goddard, Ellen W., 2001. "The Rise of Red and the Wane of White: Wine Demand in Ontario Canada," 2001 Conference (45th), January 23-25, 2001, Adelaide, Australia 125617, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    19. Galama, Titus & Kapteyn, Arie, 2011. "Grossman’s missing health threshold," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1044-1056.
    20. Jiunn Wang & Laura Marsiliani & Thomas Renstrom, 2017. "Tax Reform, Unhealthy Commodities and Endogenous Health," Working Papers 2017_12, Durham University Business School.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fth:harver:2060. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.