IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uow/depec1/wp06-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Junk Food, Health and Productivity: Taste, Price, Risk and Rationality

Author

Abstract

Junk-food consumption, health and productivity are analyzed within an expectedlifetime- utility-maximizing framework in which the probability of living and productivity rise with health and health deteriorate with the consumption of junkfood. So long that the junk food’s relative taste-price differential is positive, the rational diet deviates from the physiologically optimal and renders the levels of health and productivity lower than the maximal. Taxing junk-food can eliminate this discrepancy but the outcome is not Pareto-superior. The value of health and the stationary junk-food consumption and health depend on the relative taste-price differential, survival and satisfaction elasticities and time preference-rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Levy, Amnon, 2006. "Junk Food, Health and Productivity: Taste, Price, Risk and Rationality," Economics Working Papers wp06-22, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:uow:depec1:wp06-22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.uow.edu.au/content/groups/public/@web/@commerce/@econ/documents/doc/uow012235.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Levy, Amnon, 2002. "A lifetime portfolio of risky and risk-free sexual behaviour and the prevalence of AIDS," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 993-1007, November.
    2. Patricia M. Anderson & Kristin F. Butcher, 2004. "Reading, writing, and raisinets: are school finances contributing to children’s obesity?," Working Paper Series WP-04-16, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    3. Bleichrodt, Han, 1995. "QALYs and HYEs: Under what conditions are they equivalent?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 17-37, May.
    4. Bleichrodt, Han & Quiggin, John, 1999. "Life-cycle preferences over consumption and health: when is cost-effectiveness analysis equivalent to cost-benefit analysis?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 681-708, December.
    5. Hugo Mialon & Sue Mialon, 2005. "Sinful indulgences, soft substitutes, and self-control," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(12), pages 719-722.
    6. Levy, Amnon, 2002. "Rational eating: can it lead to overweightness or underweightness?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 887-899, September.
    7. Karen E. Dynan, 2000. "Habit Formation in Consumer Preferences: Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 391-406, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amnon Levy, 2011. "An Integrative Model of Rational Diet and Physical Activity: Physiological, Gastronomic and Budgetary Aspects," Economics Working Papers wp11-06, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    2. Amnon Levy, 2011. "Physiological, Gastronomic and Budgetary Aspects and the Diets of Perfectly and Imperfectly Lifetime-Rational Consumers," Economics Working Papers wp11-13, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.

    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. Levy, Amnon, 2007. "A theoretical analysis of rational diet of healthy and junk foods," Economics Working Papers wp07-01, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    2. Levy, Amnon, 2003. "A Theory of LTR Junk-food Consumption," Economics Working Papers wp03-06, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    3. Levy, Amnon, 2002. "A Theory of Rational Junk-Food Consumption," Economics Working Papers wp02-11, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    4. Strulik, Holger, 2023. "Hooked on weight control: An economic theory of anorexia nervosa and its impact on health and longevity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Amnon Levy, 2011. "Physiological, Gastronomic and Budgetary Aspects and the Diets of Perfectly and Imperfectly Lifetime-Rational Consumers," Economics Working Papers wp11-13, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    6. Levy, Amnon, 2007. "Optimal enlistment age: A cost-benefit analysis and some simulations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 180(1), pages 418-425, July.
    7. David Canning, 2013. "Axiomatic Foundations For Cost‐Effectiveness Analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(12), pages 1405-1416, December.
    8. Levy, Amnon, 2003. "Environmental Hazard and Residential Value, Location and Dispersion," Economics Working Papers wp03-16, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    9. Amiram Gafni, 2006. "Economic Evaluation of Health-care Programmes: Is CEA Better than CBA?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 34(3), pages 407-418, July.
    10. Caputo, Michael R. & Levy, Amnon, 2012. "A theory of mood-influenced consumption and investment in health," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 218-227.
    11. Dragone, D. & Ziebarth, N.R., 2015. "Non-Separable Time Preferences and Novelty Consumption: Theory and Evidence from the East German Transition to Capitalism," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 15/28, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    12. Dragone, Davide & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2017. "Non-separable time preferences, novelty consumption and body weight: Theory and evidence from the East German transition to capitalism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 41-65.
    13. Michael Hoel, 2003. "Allocating health care resources when people are risk averse with respect to life time," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(7), pages 601-608, July.
    14. Athanasopoulos, George & de Carvalho Guillén, Osmani Teixeira & Issler, João Victor & Vahid, Farshid, 2011. "Model selection, estimation and forecasting in VAR models with short-run and long-run restrictions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 164(1), pages 116-129, September.
    15. Bengt Liljas, 2011. "Welfare, QALYs, and costs – a comment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 68-72, January.
    16. Michael T. Kiley & Jean-Philippe Laforte & Rochelle M. Edge, 2008. "The Sources of Fluctuations in Residential Investment: A View from a Policy-Oriented DSGE Model of the U.S. Economic," 2008 Meeting Papers 990, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Ryan Edwards, 2013. "The cost of uncertain life span," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1485-1522, October.
    18. Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Tambalotti, Andrea & Topa, Giorgio, 2022. "Subjective intertemporal substitution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 118-133.
    19. Douglas Lundin & Joakim Ramsberg, 2008. "On survival consumption costs – a reply to Nyman," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(2), pages 293-297, February.
    20. Faust, Jon & Gupta, Abhishek, 2010. "Posterior Predictive Analysis for Evaluating DSGE Models," MPRA Paper 26721, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    junk-food; healthy-food; relative taste; relative price; health; risk; lifequality; productivity; rationality; self-control;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:uow:depec1:wp06-22. 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: Peter Siminski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuowau.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.