TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lakdawalla,Darius
AU  - Philipson,Tomas
TI  - The Growth of Obesity and Technological Change: A Theoretical and Empirical Examination
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8946
PY  - 2002
Y2  - May 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8946
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8946.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Darius Lakdawalla
The RAND Corporation
1776 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA  90407-2138
Tel: 310/393-0411, x7896
Fax: 310/260-8155
E-Mail: darius@rand.org

Tomas Philipson
Irving B. Harris Graduate School
of Public Policy Studies
The University of Chicago
1155 E 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/502-7773
E-Mail: t-philipson@uchicago.edu
AB  - 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.
ER  -