Junk Food, Health and Productivity: Taste, Price, Risk and Rationality

Amnon Levy

Economics Working Papers from School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia

Abstract: Junk-food consumption, health and productivity are analyzed within an expectedlifetime- utility-maximizing framework in which the probability of living and productivity rise with health and health deteriorate with the consumption of junkfood. So long that the junk food’s relative taste-price differential is positive, the rational diet deviates from the physiologically optimal and renders the levels of health and productivity lower than the maximal. Taxing junk-food can eliminate this discrepancy but the outcome is not Pareto-superior. The value of health and the stationary junk-food consumption and health depend on the relative taste-price differential, survival and satisfaction elasticities and time preference-rate.

Keywords: junk-food; healthy-food; relative taste; relative price; health; risk; lifequality; productivity; rationality; self-control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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