Worth Your Weight: Experimental Evidence on the Benefits of Obesity in Low-Income Countries

IF 10.5 1区 经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS
E. Macchi
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引用次数: 8

Abstract

I study the economic value of obesity—a status symbol in poor countries associated with raised health risks. Randomizing decision-makers in Kampala, Uganda to view weight-manipulated portraits, I find that obesity is perceived as a reliable signal of wealth but not of beauty or health. Thus, leveraging a real-stakes experiment involving professional loan officers, I show that being obese facilitates access to credit. The large obesity premium, comparable to raising borrower self-reported earnings by over 60 percent, is driven by asymmetric information and drops significantly when providing more financial information. Notably, obesity benefits and wealth-signaling value are commonly overestimated, suggesting market distortions. (JEL D82, G21, G51, I12, O16, Z13)
值得你的体重:低收入国家肥胖益处的实验证据
我研究肥胖的经济价值——在贫穷国家,肥胖是地位的象征,与健康风险增加有关。我在乌干达坎帕拉随机选取决策者,让他们观看体重操纵的画像,发现肥胖被视为财富的可靠标志,而不是美丽或健康的标志。因此,通过一项涉及专业信贷员的真实风险实验,我证明了肥胖有助于获得信贷。巨大的肥胖溢价(相当于将借款人自我报告的收入提高60%以上)是由信息不对称驱动的,在提供更多财务信息时显著下降。值得注意的是,减肥效益和财富信号价值通常被高估,这表明市场扭曲。(jel d82, g21, g51, i12, o16, z13)
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来源期刊
CiteScore
18.60
自引率
2.80%
发文量
122
期刊介绍: The American Economic Review (AER) stands as a prestigious general-interest economics journal. Founded in 1911, it holds the distinction of being one of the nation's oldest and most esteemed scholarly journals in economics. With a commitment to academic excellence, the AER releases 12 issues annually, featuring articles that span a wide spectrum of economic topics.
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