Winning Big But Feeling No Better? The Effect of Lottery Prizes on Physical and Mental Health
Winning Big But Feeling No Better? The Effect of Lottery Prizes on Physical and Mental Health
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DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.1515814
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发表时间：
2014-01
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
B. Apouey;A. Clark
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
B. Apouey;A. Clark
我们使用英国面板数据来确定收入对一些个人健康结果的外生影响：一般健康状况，心理健康，身体健康问题和健康行为（饮酒和吸烟）。彩票中奖使我们能够就收入对健康的影响做出因果陈述，因为中奖者赢得的金额在很大程度上是外生的。积极的收入冲击对自我评估的总体健康没有显著影响，但对心理健康有显著的积极影响。这一结果在两个层面上似乎自相矛盾。首先，在横截面数据中，健康状况存在一个众所周知的梯度，其次，一般健康状况应该部分反映心理健康状况，因此我们可以预期这两个变量朝着同一方向发展。我们提出了一个解决方案，第一个明显的矛盾，强调收入的内消性。对于第二个，我们发现彩票奖金也与更多的吸烟和社交饮酒有关。一般健康状况将反映心理健康和这些行为的影响，因此在积极的收入冲击之后可能不会改善。
We use British panel data to determine the exogenous impact of income on a number of individual health outcomes: general health status, mental health, physical health problems, and health behaviours (drinking and smoking). Lottery winnings allow us to make causal statements regarding the effect of income on health, as the amount won by winners is largely exogenous. Positive income shocks have no significant effect on self-assessed overall health, but a significant positive effect on mental health. This result seems paradoxical on two levels. First, there is a well-known gradient in health status in cross-sectional data, and second, general health should partly reflect mental health, so that we may expect both variables to move in the same direction. We propose a solution to the first apparent paradox by underlining the endogeneity of income. For the second, we show that lottery winnings are also associated with more smoking and social drinking. General health will reflect both mental health and the effect of these behaviours and so may not improve following a positive income shock.