Food Prices and the Dynamics of Body Weight

The dynamic effects of obesity on the wages of young workers

“…18 This assumption finds empirical support in the dynamic models of body mass estimated by Goldman et al (2010) and Ng et 16 In contrast, serial correlation in the residuals of static wage regressions, which dominate the previous literature, is expected because those residuals are not independent of lagged wages. The dynamic estimation in the current paper, therefore, supports the comments in Cawley (2004) about serial correlation in the previous literature.…”

Understanding Overeating and Obesity

“…Just (2006) provides more general evidence of the limited price-responsiveness of food consumption. Goldman et al (2009) show very small short-run effects of food prices on weight: a 10 percent increase in the money price is predicted to increase average BMI by just 0.6 percent (0.22 kg/m 2 ) after two years. They obtain substantially larger long-run elasticities but these depend on functionalform assumptions of model used, rather than being directly estimated.…”

Social Distortion in Weight Perception: A Decomposition of the Obesity Epidemic

“…Since the average weight gain has been too abrupt to be the result of a major genetic evolution several scholars have recently focused on other possible explanations such as: the decrease in real food prices (Goldman et al, 2011, Philipson and Posner, 2003, 2008, the reduction of the time cost of food (Cutler et al, 2003, Ruhm, 2012, technological changes due to economic growth (Huffman et al, 2010, Lakdawalla andPhilipson, 2009) or the introduction of welfare-improving technological change (Lakdawalla et al, 2006). However, these explanations are able to explain just partially the so-called "obesity epidemic" (Cawley, 2015).…”