Labour Market, Obesity and Public Policy Considerations

Eleftheriou, Konstantinos and Athanasiou, George (2010): Labour Market, Obesity and Public Policy Considerations.

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate the relation among wages, unemployment and obesity and to identify public policies to address the problem of over-weightness. To this purpose, a simple search and matching model of labour market is developed. Our framework tries to capture the relationship between obesity and employment/unemployment by assuming that the fraction of obese workers is a function of the ratio of vacant jobs to unemployment (labour market tightness). We argue that if obesity is positively related with employment, then social optimality dictates the imposition of a lump-sum tax on all individuals. In the opposite case a subsidy should be given.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Obesity; Taxation; Unemployment; Wages
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I18 - Government Policy ; Regulation ; Public Health; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J64 - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I10 - General

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