Data for: Wealth and health behavior: Testing the concept of a health cost

Abstract of associated article: Wealthier individuals engage in healthier behavior. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by exploiting both inheritances and lottery winnings to test a theory of health behavior. We distinguish between the direct monetary cost and the indirect health cost (value of health lost) of unhealthy consumption. The health cost increases with wealth and the degree of unhealthiness, leading wealthier individuals to consume more healthy and moderately unhealthy, but fewer severely unhealthy goods. The empirical evidence presented suggests that differences in health costs may indeed partially explain behavioral differences, and ultimately health outcomes, between wealth groups.

关联论文摘要：富裕个体更倾向于采取健康行为。本文旨在通过利用遗产继承与彩票中奖收入这两类外生财富冲击，检验健康行为理论，以此解释这一现象。我们将不健康消费带来的成本划分为直接货币成本与间接健康成本（即健康损失的价值）。健康成本随财富水平与消费行为的不健康程度提升而增加，这使得富裕个体更多选择健康及轻度不健康的消费品，而减少重度不健康消费品的消费。本文所呈现的实证证据表明，健康成本的差异确实可以部分解释不同财富群体间的行为差异，并最终影响其健康结局。