Biased Health Perceptions and Risky Health Behaviors: Theory and Evidence

Patrick Arni (), Davide Dragone, Lorenz Götte () and Nicolas Ziebarth ()
Additional contact information
Patrick Arni: University of Bristol
Lorenz Götte: National University of Singapore

No 13308, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper investigates the role of biased health perceptions as driving forces of risky health behavior. We define absolute and relative health perception biases, illustrate their measurement in surveys and provide evidence on their relevance. Next, we decompose the theoretical effect into its extensive and intensive margin: When the extensive margin dominates, people (wrongly) believe they are healthy enough to "afford" unhealthy behavior. Finally, using three population surveys, we provide robust empirical evidence that respondents who overestimate their health are less likely to exercise and sleep enough, but more likely to eat unhealthily and drink alcohol daily.

Keywords: exercising; health bias; health perceptions; subjective beliefs; overconfidence; underconfidence; overoptimism; risky behavior; smoking; obesity; SF12; SAH; BASE-II (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D03 D83 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-hea, nep-ore and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: Journal of Health Economics , 2021, 76, 102425

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Related works:
Journal Article: Biased health perceptions and risky health behaviors—Theory and evidence (2021)
Working Paper: Biased Health Perceptions and Risky Health Behaviors: Theory and Evidence (2020)
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