IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/oslohe/2001_011.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A healthy lifestyle: The product of opportunities and preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Lurås, Hilde

    (Institute of Health Management and Health Economics)

Abstract

In this explorative study we examine factors explaining individual choice of lifestyle. The empirical analysis of smoking, exercising and diet show that the mechanisms determining people’s lifestyle are complex. We argue that the economic models on the demand for health is a meaningful framework for analysing this issue, but that it needs some refinements. A suggestion for further analytical work is therefore to reformulate the model to incorporate own past behaviour (habits), the society individuals belongs to (traditions and norms), as well as a more immediate effect on utility of lifestyle.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:oslohe:2001_011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hero.uio.no/publicat/2001/HERO2001_11.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cropper, M L, 1977. "Health, Investment in Health, and Occupational Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1273-1294, December.
    2. Victor R. Fuchs, 1982. "Economic Aspects of Health," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fuch82-1, January.
    3. Lindbladh, Eva & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Hanson, Bertil S. & Östergren, Perolof & Isacsson, Sven-Olof & Lindgren, Björn, 1996. "An economic and sociological interpretation of social differences in health-related behaviour: An encounter as a guide to social epidemiology," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(12), pages 1817-1827, December.
    4. Thaler, Richard, 1981. "Some empirical evidence on dynamic inconsistency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 201-207.
    5. David M. Grether, 1980. "Bayes Rule as a Descriptive Model: The Representativeness Heuristic," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 537-557.
    6. Selma J. Mushkin, 1962. "Health as an Investment," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 129-157, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Mark C. Berger & J. Paul Leigh, 1989. "Schooling, Self-Selection, and Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(3), pages 433-455.
    8. Bretteville-Jensen, A.L., 1999. "Addiction and Discounting," Norway; Department of Economics, University of Bergen 198, Department of Economics, University of Bergen.
    9. O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 1997. "Doing It Now or Later," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt7t44m5b0, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    10. Akerlof, George A, 1991. "Procrastination and Obedience," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 1-19, May.
    11. 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.
    12. Adam Wagstaff, 1993. "The demand for health: An empirical reformulation of the Grossman model," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 2(2), pages 189-198, July.
    13. Warner, Kenneth E., 1984. "Publicity, price, and puffing a health economics contribution to disease prevention," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 179-186, August.
    14. Michael Grossman, 1972. "The Demand for Health: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gros72-1, January.
    15. Fuchs, Victor R. (ed.), 1982. "Economic Aspects of Health," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226267852, January.
    16. Matthew Rabin & Ted O'Donoghue, 1999. "Doing It Now or Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
    17. Victor R. Fuchs, 2018. "Schooling and Health: The Cigarette Connection," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Health Economics and Policy Selected Writings by Victor Fuchs, chapter 9, pages 99-113, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Becker, Gary S & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "A Theory of Rational Addiction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(4), pages 675-700, August.
    19. Donald S. Kenkel, 1995. "Should you eat breakfast? Estimates from health production functions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(1), pages 15-29, January.
    20. Wagstaff, Adam, 1986. "The demand for health : Some new empirical evidence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 195-233, September.
    21. Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 1999. "Incentives for Procrastinators," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 769-816.
    22. Ericsson, Asa, 1997. "The importance of lifestyle to self-assessed health," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 145-155, November.
    23. Ehrlich, Isaac & Chuma, Hiroyuki, 1990. "A Model of the Demand for Longevity and the Value of Life Extension," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 761-782, August.
    24. Hey, John D. & Patel, Mahesh S., 1983. "Prevention and cure? : Or: Is an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 119-138, August.
    25. Ippolito, Pauline M, 1981. "Information and the Life Cycle Consumption of Hazardous Goods," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 19(4), pages 529-558, October.
    26. Grossman, Michael, 2000. "The human capital model," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 347-408, Elsevier.
    27. Bretteville-Jensen, A. L., 1999. "Addiction and discounting1," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 393-407, August.
    28. Dardanoni, Valentino & Wagstaff, Adam, 1987. "Uncertainty, inequalities in health and the demand for health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 283-290, December.
    29. Selma J. Mushkin, 1962. "Health as an Investment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(5), pages 129-129.
    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. Michael Grossman, 1999. "The Human Capital Model of the Demand for Health," NBER Working Papers 7078, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Hren Rok, 2012. "Theoretical shortcomings of the Grossman model," Bulletin: Economics, Organisation and Informatics in Healthcare, Sciendo, vol. 28(1), pages 63-75, January.
    3. Galama, Titus & Kapteyn, Arie, 2011. "Grossman’s missing health threshold," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1044-1056.
    4. Michael Grossman, 2022. "The demand for health turns 50: Reflections," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(9), pages 1807-1822, September.
    5. Bolin, Kristian & Lindgren, Björn, 2016. "Non-monotonic health behaviours – implications for individual health-related behaviour in a demand-for-health framework," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 9-26.
    6. Titus J. Galama & Hans van Kippersluis, 2013. "Health Inequalities through the Lens of Health Capital Theory: Issues, Solutions, and Future Directions," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-076/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Grossman, Michael, 2006. "Education and Nonmarket Outcomes," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 577-633, Elsevier.
    8. Gilleskie, Donna B. & Harrison, Amy L., 1998. "The effect of endogenous health inputs on the relationship between health and education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 279-295, June.
    9. Galama, T. & Hullegie, P. & Meijer, E. & Outcault, S., 2012. "Empirical evidence for decreasing returns to scale in a health capital model," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 12/05, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    10. Gabriella Conti, 2013. "The Developmental Origins of Health Inequality," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 285-309, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    11. Altindag, Duha & Cannonier, Colin & Mocan, Naci, 2011. "The impact of education on health knowledge," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 792-812, October.
    12. Grossman, Michael, 2004. "The demand for health, 30 years later: a very personal retrospective and prospective reflection," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 629-636, July.
    13. Grimard, Franque & Parent, Daniel, 2007. "Education and smoking: Were Vietnam war draft avoiders also more likely to avoid smoking?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 896-926, September.
    14. Titus J. Galama & Patrick Hullegie & Erik Meijer & Sarah Outcault, 2012. "Is There Empirical Evidence For Decreasing Returns To Scale In A Health Capital Model?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(9), pages 1080-1100, September.
    15. de La Bruslerie, Hubert & Pratlong, Florent, 2012. "La valeur psychologique du temps : une synthèse de la littérature," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 88(3), pages 361-400, Septembre.
    16. 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).
    17. Manoj K. Pandey, 2013. "Elderly's Health Shocks and Household's Ex-ante Poverty in India," ASARC Working Papers 2013-01, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    18. Kossova, Tatiana (Коссова, Татьяна) & Kossova, Elena (Коссова, Елена) & Sheluntsova, Maria (Шелунцова, Мария), 2014. "A healthy lifestyle and individual intertemporal preferences of Russia [Здоровый Образ Жизни И Индивидуальные Межвременные Предпочтения Жителей России]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 172-190, October.
    19. Strulik, Holger & Trimborn, Timo, 2018. "Hyperbolic discounting can be good for your health," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 44-57.
    20. van Kippersluis, Hans & Galama, Titus J., 2014. "Wealth and health behavior: Testing the concept of a health cost," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 197-220.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health demand models; lifestyle; ordered probit analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C35 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    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:hhs:oslohe:2001_011. 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: Kristi Brinkmann Lenander (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/heuiono.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.