Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-5r2nc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-15T05:14:47.058Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Healthy habits: some thoughts on the role of public policy in healthful eating and exercise under limited rationality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

By
Matthew Rabin
Edited by
Adam Oliver
Matthew Rabin
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Adam Oliver
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Get access

Summary

‘Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.’

– Mark Twain

‘The diminutive chain of habit is scarcely heavy enough to be felt till it is too strong to be broken.’

– simplification of Samuel Johnson quote used in nineteenth-century temperance literature

‘The child is the Father of the Man.’

– William Wordsworth

‘The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.’

– Fyodor Dostoevsky

‘Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.’

– Confucius

‘My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.’

– Errol Flynn

Introduction

In this chapter, I explore some possible policy implications concerning habitual activities relating to health – such as eating and exercise – that have (for good reason) become the subject of social and policy debate. I do so from the perspective of economic theory, empirical evidence and with a focus on the implications of some recent research in behavioural economics.

I emphasize several themes. First, I outline a simple economic perspective on habitual behaviour. Although it also accords with common sense, reasonable psychology and empirical evidence, there is some tendency by social scientists and policy-makers to neglect this perspective.

Type
Chapter
Information
Behavioural Public Policy , pp. 115 - 147
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acland, D. and Levy, M. R. (2010). Habit Formation, Naiveté, and Projection Bias in Gym Attendance. Mimeo.
Akerlof, G. (1991). Procrastination and Obedience. American Economic Review 81(2): 1–19.Google Scholar
Badger, G. J., Bickel, W. K., Giordano, L. A., Jacobs, E. A., Loewenstein, G. and Marsch, L. (2007). Altered States: The Impact of Craving on the Valuation of Current and Future Opioids. Journal of Health Economics 26(5): 865–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baumeister, R. F., Heatherton, T. F. and Tice, D. M. (1994). Losing Control: How and Why People Fail at Self-Regulation. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Becker, G. S. and Murphy, K. M. (1988). A Theory of Rational Addiction. Journal of Political Economy 96(4): 675–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. S., Grossman, M. and Murphy, K. M. (1991). Rational Addiction and the Effect of Price on Consumption. American Economic Review 81(2): 237–41.Google Scholar
Becker, G. S., Grossman, M. and Murphy, K. M. (1994). An Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Addiction. American Economic Review 84(3): 396–418.Google Scholar
Bernheim, B. D. and Rangel, A. (2004). Addiction and Cue-Triggered Decision Processes. American Economic Review 94(5): 1558–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Charness, G. and Gneezy, U. (2009). Incentives to Exercise. Econometrica 77(3): 909–31.Google Scholar
Gilbert, D. T., Gill, M. J. and Wilson, T. D. (2002). The Future is Now: Temporal Correction in Affective Forecasting. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 88(1): 430–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giordano, L., Bickel, W. K., Lowenstein, G., Jacobs, E. A., Marsch, L. and Badger, G. J. (2002). Mild Opioid Deprivation Increases the Degree that Opioid-Dependent Outpatients Discount Delayed Heroin and Money. Psychopharmacology 163: 174–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glied, S. (2002). Youth Tobacco Control: Reconciling Theory and Empirical Evidence. Journal of Health Economics 21(1): 117–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glied, S. (2003). Is Smoking Delayed Smoking Averted? American Journal of Public Health 93(3): 412–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gruber, J. (2001). Youth Smoking in the 1990s: Why Did it Rise and What are the Long-Run Implications? American Economic Review 91(2): 85–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruber, J. and Köszegi, B. (2001). Is Addiction ‘Rational’? Theory and Evidence. Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(4): 1261–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruber, J. and Köszegi, B. (2004). Tax Incidence When Individuals are Time-Consistent: The Case of Cigarette Excise Taxes. Journal of Public Economics 88(9–10): 1959–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruber, J. and Mullainathan, S. (2005). Do Cigarette Taxes Make Smokers Happier? Advances in Economic Analysis and Policy 5(1): article 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrnstein, R. J. and Prelec, D. (1992). A Theory of Addiction. In Loewenstein, G. and Elster, J. (eds.), Choice Over Time. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 331–60.Google Scholar
Laibson, D. (1997). Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting. Quarterly Journal of Economics 112(2): 443–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, M. R. (2009). An Empirical Analysis of Biases in Cigarette Addiction. Mimeo.
Loewenstein, G., O’Donoghue, T. and Rabin, M. (2003). Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(4): 1209–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisbett, R. E. and Kanouse, D. E. (1969). Obesity, Food Deprivation and Supermarket Shopping Behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 12(4): 281–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O’Donoghue, T. and Rabin, M. (1999a). Doing It Now or Later. American Economic Review 89(1): 103–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Donoghue, T. and Rabin, M. (1999b). Addiction and Self Control. In Elster, J. (ed.), Addiction: Entries and Exits. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
O’Donoghue, T. and Rabin, M. (2000a). The Economics of Immediate Gratification. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 13(2): 233–50.3.0.CO;2-U>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Donoghue, T. and Rabin, M. (2000b). Addiction and Present-Biased Preferences. Mimeo.
O’Donoghue, T. and Rabin, M. (2006). Optimal Sin Taxes. Journal of Public Economics 90(10–11): 1825–49.Google Scholar
Orphanides, A. and Zervos, D. (1995). Rational Addiction with Learning and Regret. Journal of Political Economy 103: 739–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollak, R. A. (1970). Habit Formation and Dynamic Demand Functions. Journal of Political Economy 78(4): 745–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, D. and van Leeuwen, B. (1998). Predicting Hunger: The Effects of Appetite and Delay on Choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 76(2): 189–205.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, R. (2007). The Optimal Consumption and the Quitting of Harmful Addictive Goods. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy 7(1): article 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wordsworth, William. (1807). “My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold,” in Poems, in Two Volumes. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×