What Explains Differences in Smoking, Drinking and Other Health-Related Behaviors

David Cutler and Edward Glaeser

No 11100, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: 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.

JEL-codes: I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
Note: EH AG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (112)

Published as 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.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11100.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: What Explains Differences in Smoking, Drinking, and Other Health-Related Behaviors? (2005)
Working Paper: What Explains Differences in Smoking, Drinking and Other Health-Related Behaviors? (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11100

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11100

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().