Parental Beliefs about Returns to Child Health Investments

Pietro Biroli (), Teodora Boneva, Akash Raja () and Christopher Rauh
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Akash Raja: London School of Economics and Political Science

No 2018-008, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: Childhood obesity has adverse health and productivity consequences and poses negative externalities to health services. Its increase in recent decades can be traced back to unhealthy habits acquired in the household. We investigate whether parental beliefs play a role by eliciting beliefs about the returns to a recommended-calorie diet and regular exercise using hypothetical investment scenarios. We show that perceived returns are predictive of health investments and outcomes, and that less educated parents perceive the returns to health investments to be lower, thus contributing to the socioeconomic inequality in health outcomes and the intergenerational transmission of obesity.

Keywords: parental investments; Health; beliefs; Inequality; equality of opportunity; obesity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D19 I10 I12 I14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-hea
Note: ECI
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Biroli ... efs-child-health.pdf First version, February, 2018 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Parental beliefs about returns to child health investments (2022)
Working Paper: Parental Beliefs about Returns to Child Health Investments (2020)
Working Paper: Parental Beliefs about Returns to Child Health Investments (2018)
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