The utility of health and wealth

Moshe Levy; Adi Rizansky Nir

doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2012.02.003

The utility of health and wealth

Moshe Levy^*, Adi Rizansky Nir

^*Corresponding author for this work

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25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tradeoffs between health and wealth are among the most important decisions individuals make, and are central to social and economic policy. Yet, only a few studies have investigated the utility of health and wealth empirically. This paper investigates this utility function both theoretically and empirically. We conduct detailed personal interviews with 180 cancer patients, and also obtain questionnaires from 132 diabetes patients. We find strong support for the utility function U(. h, w). =. h·. log(. w), where h denotes health and w denotes wealth.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	379-392
Number of pages	14
Journal	Journal of Health Economics
Volume	31
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2012.02.003
State	Published - Mar 2012

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are grateful to Tony Culyer, the Editor, and to the two anonymous referees for their very helpful comments and suggestions. We thank the Zagagi Fund for financial support.

Keywords

Health
Logarithmic preference
Utility
Wealth

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.jhealeco.2012.02.003

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AB - Tradeoffs between health and wealth are among the most important decisions individuals make, and are central to social and economic policy. Yet, only a few studies have investigated the utility of health and wealth empirically. This paper investigates this utility function both theoretically and empirically. We conduct detailed personal interviews with 180 cancer patients, and also obtain questionnaires from 132 diabetes patients. We find strong support for the utility function U(. h, w). =. h·. log(. w), where h denotes health and w denotes wealth.

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The utility of health and wealth

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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