The Dow is Killing Me: Risky Health Behaviors and the Stock Market

Chad Cotti, Richard Dunn and Nathan Tefft

Health Economics, 2015, vol. 24, issue 7, 803-821

Abstract: We investigate how risky health behaviors and self‐reported health vary with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and during stock market crashes. Because stock market indices are leading indicators of economic performance, this research contributes to our understanding of the macroeconomic determinants of health. Existing studies typically rely on the unemployment rate to proxy for economic performance, but this measure captures only one of many channels through which the economic environment may influence individual health decisions. We find that large, negative monthly DJIA returns, decreases in the level of the DJIA, and stock market crashes are widely associated with worsening self‐reported mental health and more cigarette smoking, binge drinking, and fatal car accidents involving alcohol. These results are consistent with predictions from rational addiction models and have implications for research on the association between consumption and stock prices. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (42)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3062

Related works:
Working Paper: The Dow is Killing Me: Risky Health Behaviors and the Stock Market (2013)
Working Paper: The Dow is Killing Me: Risky Health Behaviors and the Stock Market (2013)
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:wly:hlthec:v:24:y:2015:i:7:p:803-821

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones

More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().