The role of dietary choices and medical expenditures on health outcomes when health shocks are endogenous

Pedro Gomis-Porqueras, Solmaz Moslehi () and Richard M.H. Suen

Economic Modelling, 2016, vol. 54, issue C, 13-25

Abstract: This paper presents a theoretical framework that incorporates both a role for preventive actions (through food choices) and treatment (through medical services) to improve health outcomes. In particular, we allow for an agent's calorie decision to alter the distribution of future health shocks. Once a shock is realized, medical care can be used to improve health outcomes. Thus this model can help us determine the role of the preventive actions and treatments in producing better health outcomes and study the links between an agent's choice of medical services and her diet. This framework suggests that wealthier individuals, on average, have lower morbidity rates and lead a healthier lifestyle than lower income agents. Finally, our numerical exercise captures U.S. cross-sectional facts regarding the choice of diet, medical expenditures as well as health and non-food expenditures.

Keywords: Diet; Treatment; Prevention; Health Shocks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999315003922
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:ecmode:v:54:y:2016:i:c:p:13-25

DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2015.11.024

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Modelling is currently edited by S. Hall and P. Pauly

More articles in Economic Modelling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().