IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i7p2234-d337381.html

How Does Health Status Affect Marginal Utility of Consumption? Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoyu Wang

    (National School of Development, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China)

  • Chunan Wang

    (School of Economics and Management, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China)

Abstract

This paper investigates how the deteriorating health status of an individual affects the marginal utility of non-medical consumption in China. By using 2011, 2013 and 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) data, we find that when the number of chronic diseases increases one standard deviation, the marginal utility of consumption will increase by 16.0% and 20.0% for samples of the middle-aged and elderly individuals over 50 and 65 years of age, respectively. This result is to some extent contrary to the findings from the US. Different economic development stages, intergenerational norms and bequest motives may be reasons for these contrasting patterns between China and the US.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoyu Wang & Chunan Wang, 2020. "How Does Health Status Affect Marginal Utility of Consumption? Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-20, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:7:p:2234-:d:337381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/7/2234/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/7/2234/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McIntyre, Diane & Thiede, Michael & Dahlgren, Göran & Whitehead, Margaret, 2006. "What are the economic consequences for households of illness and of paying for health care in low- and middle-income country contexts?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 858-865, February.
    2. Creedy, John & Guest, Ross, 2008. "Population ageing and intertemporal consumption: Representative agent versus social planner," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 485-498, May.
    3. Wang, Hong & Zhang, Licheng & Hsiao, William, 2006. "Ill health and its potential influence on household consumptions in rural China," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(2-3), pages 167-177, October.
    4. Amy Finkelstein & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2009. "Approaches to Estimating the Health State Dependence of the Utility Function," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 116-121, May.
    5. Amy Finkelstein & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2013. "What Good Is Wealth Without Health? The Effect Of Health On The Marginal Utility Of Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 221-258, January.
    6. Sloan, Frank A. & Kip Viscusi, W. & Chesson, Harrell W. & Conover, Christopher J. & Whetten-Goldstein, Kathryn, 1998. "Alternative approaches to valuing intangible health losses: the evidence for multiple sclerosis1," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 475-497, August.
    7. Evans, William N & Viscusi, W Kip, 1991. "Estimation of State-Dependent Utility Functions Using Survey Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(1), pages 94-104, February.
    8. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 2007. "The Value of Life and the Rise in Health Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 39-72.
    9. Edwards, Ryan D, 2008. "Health Risk and Portfolio Choice," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 472-485.
    10. Masha F. Somi & James R. G. Butler & Farshid Vahid & Joseph D. Njau & Salim Abdulla, 2009. "Household responses to health risks and shocks: A study from rural Tanzania raises some methodological issues," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 200-211.
    11. Raj Chetty, 2006. "A New Method of Estimating Risk Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1821-1834, December.
    12. Kools, Lieke & Knoef, Marike, 2019. "Health and consumption preferences; estimating the health state dependence of utility using equivalence scales," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 46-62.
    13. Rama Pal, 2013. "Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditure: Impact on the Consumption of Indian Households," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 258-279, June.
    14. Thomas Davidoff & Jeffrey R. Brown & Peter A. Diamond, 2005. "Annuities and Individual Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1573-1590, December.
    15. Kumara, Ajantha Sisira & Samaratunge, Ramanie, 2017. "Impact of ill-health on household consumption in Sri Lanka: Evidence from household survey data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 68-76.
    16. Liu, Kai & Wu, Qiaobing & Liu, Junqiang, 2014. "Examining the association between social health insurance participation and patients' out-of-pocket payments in China: The role of institutional arrangement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 95-103.
    17. Jeffrey R. Brown & Amy Finkelstein, 2008. "The Interaction of Public and Private Insurance: Medicaid and the Long-Term Care Insurance Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 1083-1102, June.
    18. Lillard, Lee A & Weiss, Yoram, 1997. "Uncertain Health and Survival: Effects on End-of-Life Consumption," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(2), pages 254-268, April.
    19. Viscusi, W Kip & Evans, William N, 1990. "Utility Functions That Depend on Health Status: Estimates and Economic Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 353-374, June.
    20. Metrick, Andrew, 1995. "A Natural Experiment in "Jeopardy!"," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 240-253, March.
    21. Diether W. Beuermann & Inder J. Ruprah & Ricardo E. Sierra, 2016. "Do remittances help smooth consumption during health shocks?: Evidence from Jamaica," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 50(3), pages 1-19, July-Sept.
    22. Gabriela Flores & Jaya Krishnakumar & Owen O'Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2008. "Coping with health‐care costs: implications for the measurement of catastrophic expenditures and poverty," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(12), pages 1393-1412, December.
    23. James P. Smith, 1999. "Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 145-166, Spring.
    24. Gabriela Flores & Jaya Krishnakumar & Owen O'Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2008. "Coping with health-care costs: implications for the measurement of catastrophic expenditures and poverty," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(12), pages 1393-1412.
    25. Erus, Burcay & Yakut-Cakar, Burcu & Cali, Sanda & Adaman, Fikret, 2015. "Health policy for the poor: An exploration on the take-up of means-tested health benefits in Turkey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 99-106.
    26. Mikhail Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2006. "Designing Optimal Disability Insurance: A Case for Asset Testing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 257-279, April.
    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. Seog, S. Hun & Hong, Jimin, 2024. "Moral hazard in loss reduction and state-dependent utility," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 151-168.

    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. Kumara, Ajantha Sisira & Samaratunge, Ramanie, 2017. "Impact of ill-health on household consumption in Sri Lanka: Evidence from household survey data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 68-76.
    2. Amy Finkelstein & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2013. "What Good Is Wealth Without Health? The Effect Of Health On The Marginal Utility Of Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 221-258, January.
    3. Daniel Bauer & Darius Lakdawalla & Julian Reif, 2018. "Mortality Risk, Insurance, and the Value of Life," NBER Working Papers 25055, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Amo-Agyei, Silas, 2025. "The effect of health on the marginal utility of consumption: Evidence based on household consumption expenditure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    5. Fadlon, Itzik & Nielsen, Torben Heien, 2019. "Household labor supply and the gains from social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 18-28.
    6. Octave Jokung & Serge Macé, 2013. "Long-term health investment when people underestimate their adaptation to old age-related health problems," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(6), pages 1003-1013, December.
    7. Jimin Hong & Kyungsun Kim, 2021. "Self-insurance and saving under a two-argument utility framework," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 73-94, September.
    8. Seog, S. Hun & Hong, Jimin, 2024. "Moral hazard in loss reduction and state-dependent utility," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 151-168.
    9. Lee, Siha, 2020. "Household responses to disability shocks: Spousal labor supply, caregiving, and disability insurance," CLEF Working Paper Series 21, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    10. Siha Lee, 2024. "Spousal Labor Supply, Caregiving, And The Value Of Disability Insurance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 65(4), pages 1681-1716, November.
    11. Elena Bassoli, 2023. "An Empirical Analysis of Health-Dependent Utility on SHARE and ELSA Data," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 9(3), pages 1217-1261, November.
    12. Kindermann, Fabian & Kunz, Sebastian, 2025. "Unequal Lifespans and Redistribution," VfS Annual Conference 2025 (Cologne): Revival of Industrial Policy 325366, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Bauer, Daniel & Lakdawalla, Darius & Reif, Julian, 2025. "Health risk and the value of life," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    14. Padmaja Ayyagari & Daifeng He, 2017. "The Role of Medical Expenditure Risk in Portfolio Allocation Decisions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(11), pages 1447-1458, November.
    15. Attema, Arthur E. & l’Haridon, Olivier & van de Kuilen, Gijs, 2019. "Measuring multivariate risk preferences in the health domain," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 15-24.
    16. Kools, Lieke & Knoef, Marike, 2019. "Health and consumption preferences; estimating the health state dependence of utility using equivalence scales," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 46-62.
    17. Amy Finkelstein & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2009. "Approaches to Estimating the Health State Dependence of the Utility Function," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 116-121, May.
    18. David Crainich, 2025. "Optimal self‐insurance with genetic testing and state‐dependent utility," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(2), pages 418-442, May.
    19. Raj Chetty & Amy Finkelstein, 2012. "Social Insurance: Connecting Theory to Data," NBER Working Papers 18433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Dorte Gyrd‐Hansen, 2017. "A Stated Preference Approach to Assess whether Health Status Impacts on Marginal Utility of Consumption," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(10), pages 1224-1233, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:7:p:2234-:d:337381. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.