IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8946.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Growth of Obesity and Technological Change: A Theoretical and Empirical Examination

Author

Listed:
  • Darius Lakdawalla
  • Tomas Philipson

Abstract

This paper provides a theoretical and empirical examination of the long-run growth in weight over time. We argue that technological change has induced weight growth by making home- and market-production more sedentary and by lowering food prices through agricultural innovation. We analyze how such technological change leads to unexpected relationships among income, food prices, and weight. Using individual-level data from 1976 to 1994, we then find that such technology-based reductions in food prices and job-related exercise have had significant impacts on weight across time and populations. In particular, we find that about forty percent of the recent growth in weight seems to be due to agricultural innovation that has lowered food prices, while sixty percent may be due to demand factors such as declining physical activity from technological changes in home and market production.

Suggested Citation

  • Darius Lakdawalla & Tomas Philipson, 2002. "The Growth of Obesity and Technological Change: A Theoretical and Empirical Examination," NBER Working Papers 8946, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8946
    Note: EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8946.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Araujo, A, 1991. "The Once but Not Twice Differentiability of the Policy Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(5), pages 1383-1393, September.
    2. Chou, Shin-Yi & Grossman, Michael & Saffer, Henry, 2004. "An economic analysis of adult obesity: results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 565-587, May.
    3. Keeler, E.B. & Manning, W.G. & Newhouse, J.P. & Sloss, E.M. & Wasserman, J., 1989. "The external costs of a sedentary life-style," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 79(8), pages 975-981.
    4. Tomas J. Philipson & Richard A. Posner, 1999. "The Long-Run Growth in Obesity as a Function of Technological Change," Working Papers 9912, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    5. Tomas Philipson, 2001. "The world‐wide growth in obesity: an economic research agenda," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(1), pages 1-7, January.
    6. Dora Costa & Richard H. Steckel, 1997. "Long-Term Trends in Health, Welfare, and Economic Growth in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Health and Welfare during Industrialization, pages 47-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Bound, John & Brown, Charles & Mathiowetz, Nancy, 2001. "Measurement error in survey data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 59, pages 3705-3843, Elsevier.
    8. Putnam, Judith Jones & Allshouse, Jane E., 1999. "Food Consumption, Prices, and Expenditures, 1970-97," Statistical Bulletin 154924, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    9. Poterba, James M., 1996. "Retail Price Reactions to Changes in State and Local Sales Taxes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 49(2), pages 165-176, June.
    10. Besley, Timothy J. & Rosen, Harvey S., 1999. "Sales Taxes and Prices: An Empirical Analysis," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(2), pages 157-178, June.
    11. Strauss, John & Thomas, Duncan, 1995. "Human resources: Empirical modeling of household and family decisions," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 1883-2023, Elsevier.
    12. John Cawley, 2000. "Body Weight and Women's Labor Market Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 7841, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Poterba, James M., 1996. "Retail Price Reactions to Changes in State and Local Sales Taxes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 49(2), pages 165-76, June.
    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. Chou, Shin-Yi & Grossman, Michael & Saffer, Henry, 2004. "An economic analysis of adult obesity: results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 565-587, May.
    2. Heather Antecol & Kelly Bedard, 2006. "Unhealthy assimilation: Why do immigrants converge to American health status levels?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 43(2), pages 337-360, May.
    3. Lakdawalla, Darius & Philipson, Tomas, 2009. "The growth of obesity and technological change," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 283-293, December.
    4. Anderson, Simon P. & de Palma, Andre & Kreider, Brent, 2001. "Tax incidence in differentiated product oligopoly," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 173-192, August.
    5. Francesca Parodi, 2024. "Consumption Tax Cuts In A Recession," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 65(1), pages 117-148, February.
    6. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872, Elsevier.
    7. Anderson, Simon P. & Renault, Regis, 2003. "Efficiency and surplus bounds in Cournot competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 253-264, December.
    8. García Villar, Jaume & Quintana-Domeque, Climent, 2009. "Income and body mass index in Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 73-83, March.
    9. Andrej Cupák & Peter Tóth, 2017. "Measuring the Efficiency of VAT reforms: Evidence from Slovakia," Working and Discussion Papers WP 6/2017, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    10. Kai A. Konrad & Florian Morath & Wieland Müller, 2014. "Taxation and Market Power," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(1), pages 173-202, February.
    11. Panayiota Lyssiotou & Elena Savva, 2021. "Who pays taxes on basic foodstuffs? Evidence from broadening the VAT base," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(1), pages 212-247, February.
    12. Pieroni, Luca & Salmasi, Luca, 2010. "Body weight and socio-economic determinants: quantile estimations from the British Household Panel Survey," ISER Working Paper Series 2010-41, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    13. Kira Zerwer, 2024. "VAT do you eat? Green consumption taxes and firms' market share," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 504-523, June.
    14. Charles L. Baum, 2009. "The effects of cigarette costs on BMI and obesity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 3-19, January.
    15. Sara lemos, 2004. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Prices," Discussion Papers in Economics 04/7, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    16. Antoniades, Alexis & Clerides, Sofronis & Xu, Mingzhi, 2023. "Multi-product firm price and variety response to firm-specific cost shocks," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    17. Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez & Eduardo M. Medina-Cortina, 2019. "Pass-through and competition: the impact of soft drink taxes as seen through Mexican supermarkets," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-23, December.
    18. Sara Lemos, 2004. "The Effects of the Minimum Wage on Prices in Brazil," Labor and Demography 0403011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Fumiko Hayashi, 2013. "The new debit card regulations: effects on merchants, consumers, and payments system efficiency," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 98(Q I), pages 89-118.
    20. Ricardo Batista Politi & Enlinson Mattos, 2011. "Ad-valorem tax incidence and after-tax price adjustments: evidence from Brazilian basic basket food," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 44(4), pages 1438-1470, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

    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:nbr:nberwo:8946. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.