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The Role of Optimism and Pessimism in the Substitution Between Primary and Secondary Health Prevention Efforts

  • Pauline Chauvin EMAIL logo , Bertrand Chopard and Augustin Tabo
Published/Copyright: November 7, 2019
The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy
From the journal The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy Volume 20 Issue 1

Abstract

We study how apparently healthy individuals arbitrate between primary and secondary health prevention under ambiguity. In our model, each individual simultaneously chooses the level of effort for the two types of prevention. Ambiguity relates to either the probability of disease occurrence or the effectiveness of secondary prevention. We find that pessimistic individuals invest more in primary prevention and less in secondary prevention when the effectiveness of secondary prevention is ambiguous. Conversely, pessimistic individuals invest more in secondary prevention and less in primary prevention when the probability of disease occurrence is ambiguous. When the effectiveness of secondary prevention is ambiguous, optimistic individuals invest more in secondary than primary prevention. We find also a substitution effect between the two types of prevention. The latter generates indirect effects of pessimism and optimism on each type of prevention which may reverse our results when they outweigh the direct effects.

Keywords: ambiguity; health prevention; optimism; pessimism
JEL Classification: I12; I18; D81

  1. Declaration of interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest associated with this paper to report.

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Supplemental Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (DOI:https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2018-0136).

Published Online: 2019-11-07

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2018-0136
Keywords for this article
ambiguity; health prevention; optimism; pessimism

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Research-articles
  2. Minimum Wages and Nascent Entrepreneurship in the US
  3. Social Status Perception and Individual Social Capital: Evidence from the US
  4. Endogenous Equity Shares in Cournot Competition: Welfare Analysis and Policy
  5. Personal or Partisan Incumbency Advantage? Evidence from an Electoral Reform at the Local Level in Italy
  6. Knowledge Obsolescence and Women’s Occupational Sorting: New Evidence from Citation Data
  7. The Effect of the Second Child on the Anthropometric Outcomes and Nutrition Intake of the First Child: Evidence from the Relaxation of the One-Child Policy in Rural China
  8. The Challenge of Organizing Elderly Care Programmes: Optimal Policy Design under Complete and Asymmetric Information
  9. Too Much Stick for the Carrot? Job Search Requirements and Search Behaviour of Unemployment Benefit Claimants
  10. Assessing Higher Education Policy in Brazil: A Mixed Oligopoly Approach
  11. Inheritance Taxation in a Model with Intergenerational Time Transfers
  12. Habits Do Not Die Easily: The Economics of Table Soccer
  13. Effects of Alcohol Taxation on Prices: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Pass-Through Rates
  14. Letter
  15. The Role of Optimism and Pessimism in the Substitution Between Primary and Secondary Health Prevention Efforts
  16. Executive Compensation and Labor Expenses
  17. A Note on Productive and Dynamic Inefficiencies of Intermediate Regulatory Sanctions
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