Globesity: Is Globalization a Pathway to Obesity?

Joan Costa-Font (), Nuria Mas () and Patricia Navarro
Additional contact information
Joan Costa-Font: London School of Economics, Postal: Houghton St, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom, http://www.lse.ac.uk/home.aspx
Nuria Mas: IESE Business School, Postal: IESE Business School. Research Division, Av Pearson 21, 08034 Barcelona, SPAIN, http://www.iese.edu
Patricia Navarro: IESE Business School, Postal: IESE Business School. Research Division, Av Pearson 21, 08034 Barcelona, SPAIN, http://www.iese.edu

No D/1057, IESE Research Papers from IESE Business School

Abstract: Obesity has risen dramatically at the same time as globalization has surged, which poses the question of whether the two are related. In this paper we document the association between type of globalization (economic, political or social) and obesity using data from 15 up to 23 different countries for up to 15 years, as well as three primary outcomes: obesity, caloric intake and grams of fat consume and a rich set of controls for micro-mechanisms. Our results are suggestive of a robust association between globalization and both obesity and calorie intake. However, once we control for micro-mechanisms suggested in the literature (e.g. food prices, female labor market participation and income), the impact of economic globalization fades away whilst ‘social globalization’ remains as a having robust and strong effect on the three measures of obesity. A one standard deviation increase in the KOF index of social globalization implies a rise of 3 percentage points in the proportion of obese population. It leads to a rise of 217 kcal and of 23.1 grams of fat consumed, respectively.

Keywords: globalization; obesity; calorie intake; health production; development; macromechanisms. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2013-01-08
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-1057

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