Smoking, health, risk, and perception.
We provide a description of health-related incentives faced by a rational smoker by considering the role of perception in both immediate quality-of-life effects of smoking and future risk of mortality. A person who adapts psychologically to a lowered health state, smokes more early in life and shifts demands for health investments and health-complementary activities later in life. He also smokes more in total. Someone aware of the full mortality consequences of smoking, smokes less and demands less medical care than someone who believes that these effects are highly reversible. The impacts of new information on mortality risk are most valuable early in life. Lastly, someone endowed with a longer life expectancy smokes more in the first part of life but conditional on access to medical care.
Carbone
Jared C
JC
Center for Environmental and Resource Economics Policy, 4223 Nelson Hall, Campus Box 8109, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8109, USA.
Kverndokk
Snorre
S
Røgeberg
Ole Jørgen
OJ
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001294:Attitude to Health; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009042:Motivation; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D014481:United States