This paper investigates the effects of trade in food on obesity in Mexico. We classify Mexican food imports from the U.S. into healthy and unhealthy and match these with anthropometric and food expenditure survey data. We exploit variation across Mexican states in their exposure to food imports from the U.S.. We find that imports of unhealthy foods significantly contribute to the rise of obesit...

Whereas public information campaigns have failed to reverse the rising trend in obesity, economists support food taxes as they suggest they can force individuals to change their eating behavior and make the agro-food industry think more about healthy food products. Excise taxes based on the unhealthy nutrient content would be more effective since they impact more on unhealthy food products than...

Wealthier individuals engage in healthier behavior. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by exploiting both inheritances and lottery winnings to test a theory of health behavior. We distinguish between the direct monetary cost and the indirect health cost (value of health lost) of unhealthy consumption. The health cost increases with wealth and the degree of unhealthiness, leading wealth...

The obesity epidemic is understood to be caused and influenced by multiple factors (Jones, 2014; Finegood, 2010). Amongst obesity research, the food environment is increasingly acknowledged as having a significant influence on obesity levels (Papas, 2007). Poor quality food environments, describe areas where there is an abundance of unhealthy food sources and poor availability of fresh and heal...

Nutrient labeling is found to significantly affect consumer purchase behavior; some evidence that consumers may act as if they hold nutrient (or health risk) budgets is found. Providing nutrient information may allow consumers to more easily switch consumption away from 'unhealthy' products in those food categories where differences in other quality characteristics (e.g., taste) are relatively ...

This paper investigates the effects of international trade in food on obesity in Mexico. We classify Mexican food imports from the U.S. into healthy and unhealthy and match these with anthropometric and food expenditure survey data. We find that exposure to imports of unhealthy foods significantly contributes to the rise of obesity in Mexico. The empirical evidence also suggests that unhealthy ...