Income windfalls and overweight: evidence from lottery wins

Costa-Font, Joan ORCID: 0000-0001-7174-7919 and Györi, Mario (2023) Income windfalls and overweight: evidence from lottery wins. Empirical Economics, 64 (5). 2005–2026. ISSN 0377-7332

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Abstract

We examine the impact of an income windfall (from lottery win) on an individual's overweight and Body Mass Index (BMI). We use longitudinal data from the United Kingdom, where a large proportion of the population plays the lottery, and retrieve income effect estimates using time and individual specific fixed effects alongside a set of relevant controls. Although our findings suggest any income windfall may lead to a contemporaneous increase in overweight we document evidence that a £1,000 win reduces the probability of overweight in the range by up to 3% points 12 months after the lottery win. Estimates are heterogeneous across working hours and educational attainment. A £1000 lottery win reduces the risk of overweight among low educated individuals by 4.5–5 percentual points (pp)12 months after the lottery win.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Author(s).
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
JEL classification:	I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I12 - Health Production: Nutrition, Mortality, Morbidity, Suicide, Substance Abuse and Addiction, Disability, and Economic Behavior I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I18 - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J30 - General
Date Deposited:	23 Sep 2022 15:21
Last Modified:	23 Oct 2025 23:34
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/116679

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