What Explains Differences in Smoking, Drinking and Other Health-Related Behaviors
|
NBER Working Paper No. 11100
Issued in February 2005
NBER Program(s): HC HE AG
The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.
You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.
We explore economic model of health behaviors. While the standard economic model of health as an investment is generally supported empirically, the ability of this model to explain heterogeneity across individuals is extremely limited. Most prominently, the correlation of different health behaviors across people is virtually zero, suggest that standard factors such as variation in discount rates or the value of life are not the drivers of behavior. We focus instead on two other factors: genetics; and behavioral-specific situational factors. The first factor is empirically important, and we suspect the second is as well.
Published: Cutler, David M. and Edward Glaeser. "What Explains Differences In Smoking, Drinking, And Other Health-Related Behaviors?," American Economic Review, 2005, v95(2,May), 238-242.
This paper is available as PDF (132 K) or via email.
Machine-readable bibliographic record -
MARC,
RIS,
BibTeX
|
|
|
About
Support
The research activities of the NBER are funded by grants from federal research agencies, by private foundations, and by generous donations from our corporate associates and from private individuals. The NBER is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. For information on supporting the NBER, please contact:
Mr. Denis Healy, Director of Development
NBER
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138-5398
ph: 617-868-3900
email: dhealy@nber.org
Close
