IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/agecon/v51y2020i3p403-427.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Macrorelationship between average life expectancy and prevalence of obesity: Theory and evidence from global data

Author

Listed:
  • Sangeeta Bansal
  • David Zilberman

Abstract

A large body of literature assesses the impact of obesity on health at the microlevel and finds that obesity is a risk to health and longevity of life. We develop a macrolevel analytical framework to investigate the impact of obesity prevalence on average life expectancy, the trade‐off between health expenditure and obesity prevalence, and the differential effect of obesity prevalence by gender, and apply this framework to cross country national data using a panel data of 183 countries for the years 2007 to 2014. The empirical analysis shows that the average life expectancy is a concave function of obesity prevalence, and an increase in obesity prevalence increases average expected life expectancy with low obesity levels. While obesity is a significant problem in developed countries, its impact on average life expectancy is partially mitigated by health expenditure. Underweight and lack of health expenditure in developing countries are even more severe problems. The marginal benefit of health expenditure in a low obesity country (highly correlated with underweight) has a larger impact on life expectancy relative to that in a high obesity country. A part of the longer life expectancy of women is related to better average nutritional state and less vulnerability to obesity. The results are consistent over three macromeasures of the longevity of life—average life expectancy, adult mortality rate, and healthy life expectancy.

Suggested Citation

  • Sangeeta Bansal & David Zilberman, 2020. "Macrorelationship between average life expectancy and prevalence of obesity: Theory and evidence from global data," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 51(3), pages 403-427, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:51:y:2020:i:3:p:403-427
    DOI: 10.1111/agec.12562
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12562
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/agec.12562?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Lichtenberg & David Zilberman, 1986. "The Econometrics of Damage Control: Why Specification Matters," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 68(2), pages 261-273.
    2. Rosen, Allison B. & Stewart, Susan T. & Cutler, David M., 2009. "Forecasting the Effects of Obesity and Smoking on U.S. Life Expectancy," Scholarly Articles 5344184, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    3. Preston, S.H. & Stokes, A., 2011. "Contribution of obesity to international differences in life expectancy," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 101(11), pages 2137-2143.
    4. Maria L. Loureiro & Rodolfo M. Nayga, 2005. "International Dimensions of Obesity and Overweight Related Problems: An Economics Perspective," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1147-1153.
    5. Paarlberg, Robert, 2015. "The United States of Excess: Gluttony and the Dark Side of American Exceptionalism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199922628, Decembrie.
    6. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    7. Jesus Felipe & Franklin M. Fisher, 2003. "Aggregation in Production Functions: What Applied Economists should Know," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2‐3), pages 208-262, May.
    8. Joanna P. MacEwan & Julian M. Alston & Abigail M. Okrent, 2014. "The Consequences of Obesity for the External Costs of Public Health Insurance in the United States," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 36(4), pages 696-716.
    9. Cawley, John & Meyerhoefer, Chad, 2012. "The medical care costs of obesity: An instrumental variables approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 219-230.
    10. Feder, Gershon & Just, Richard E & Zilberman, David, 1985. "Adoption of Agricultural Innovations in Developing Countries: A Survey," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 255-298, January.
    11. Mario Mazzocchi & W. Bruce Traill, 2011. "Calories, obesity and health in OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(26), pages 3919-3929.
    12. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    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. Lucas Bretschger & Elise Grieg & Paul J. J. Welfens & Tian Xiong, 2020. "COVID-19 infections and fatalities developments: empirical evidence for OECD countries and newly industrialized economies," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 801-847, October.
    2. Gupta, Shivani & Bansal, Sangeeta, 2020. "Health Implications of Obesity: An Evidence from India," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304438, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Bansal, Sangeeta & Zilberman, David, 2021. "Obesity and Life Expectancy: Why Disaggregation Methods?," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315276, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Lucas Bretschger & Elise Grieg & Paul J.J. Welfens & Tian Xiong, 2020. "Corona Fatality Development, Health Indicators and the Environment: Empirical Evidence for OECD Countries," EIIW Discussion paper disbei274, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.

    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. Bansal, Sangeeta & Zilberman, David, 2016. "Does health care expenditure counter adverse effects of obesity on health: Evidence from global data," 2017 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 6-8, 2017, Chicago, Illinois 250115, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Bansal, S. & Zilberman, D., 2018. "Role of health care expenditure in countering adverse effects of obesity on health: Evidence from global data," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275941, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Behnaz Bojd & Xiaolong Song & Yong Tan & Xiangbin Yan, 2022. "Gamified Challenges in Online Weight-Loss Communities," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 718-736, June.
    4. Daniel Ştefan Armeanu & Georgeta Vintilă & Ştefan Cristian Gherghina, 2017. "Empirical Study towards the Drivers of Sustainable Economic Growth in EU-28 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-22, December.
    5. Youngho Kang & Byung-Yeon Kim, 2018. "Immigration and economic growth: do origin and destination matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(46), pages 4968-4984, October.
    6. Vieira, Flávio & MacDonald, Ronald & Damasceno, Aderbal, 2012. "The role of institutions in cross-section income and panel data growth models: A deeper investigation on the weakness and proliferation of instruments," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 127-140.
    7. Kitazawa, Yoshitsugu, 2001. "Exponential regression of dynamic panel data models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 7-13, October.
    8. Alessandra Canepa & Fawaz Khaled, 2018. "Housing, Housing Finance and Credit Risk," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-23, May.
    9. Raushan Bokusheva & Lukáš Čechura & Subal C. Kumbhakar, 2023. "Estimating persistent and transient technical efficiency and their determinants in the presence of heterogeneity and endogeneity," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(2), pages 450-472, June.
    10. Efobi, Uchenna & Asongu, Simplice & Okafor, Chinelo & Tchamyou, Vanessa & Tanankem, Belmondo, 2016. "Diaspora Remittance Inflow, Financial Development and the Industrialisation of Africa," MPRA Paper 76121, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Simplice A. Asongu & Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo‐Obasi, 2020. "Drivers and Persistence of Death in Conflicts: Global Evidence," World Affairs, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 183(4), pages 389-429, December.
    12. Eschenhof, Sabine, 2009. "Standard Taylor rules revisited: A cross country study for European countries," Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics 196, Darmstadt University of Technology, Department of Law and Economics.
    13. Huy Quang Doan, 2019. "Trade, Institutional Quality and Income: Empirical Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-23, May.
    14. Kjetil Bjorvatn & Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2014. "Resource Rents, Power, and Political Stability," CESifo Working Paper Series 4727, CESifo.
    15. Basso, Henrique S. & Jimeno, Juan F., 2021. "From secular stagnation to robocalypse? Implications of demographic and technological changes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 833-847.
    16. Simplice A Asongu, 2013. "On the Obituary of Scientific Knowledge Monopoly," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 2718-2731.
    17. Fabbri, Francesca & Marin, Dalia, 2012. "What explains the rise in CEO pay in Germany? A Panel Data Analysis for 1977-2009," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 374, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    18. Hartwell, Christopher A., 2014. "The impact of institutional volatility on financial volatility in transition economies : a GARCH family approach," BOFIT Discussion Papers 6/2014, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    19. Samuel Fosu, 2013. "Banking Competition in Africa: Sub-regional Comparative Studies," Discussion Papers in Economics 13/12, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester, revised Jun 2013.
    20. Imam, M. & Jamasb, T. & Llorca, M. & Llorca, M., 2018. "Power Sector Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Electricity Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1801, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    More about this item

    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:bla:agecon:v:51:y:2020:i:3:p:403-427. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.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.