價格與健康：營養與健康行為選擇對健康之影響探討

Prices and Health: Identifying the Effects of Nutrition and Behavior Choices on Health

本文探討價格與健康之關聯性，期瞭解價格與工資因素如何透過個人對營養與健康行為選擇而影響健康狀況。由於內生性與衡量誤差存在，使有關營養與健康行為選擇對健康狀況估計產生偏誤與不一致性。本文藉健康經濟模型，推導由價格、工資因素決定之營養與健康行為需求函數，以工具變數透過二階段最小平方法，修正營養與健康行為選擇對估計健康狀況所存在內生性與衡量誤差。實證發現，除模型已修正營養與健康行為內生性與衡量誤差，個人特質與健康稟賦仍明顯影響健康外，具不偏與一致性估計的營養與健康行為內生健康投入，亦對健康狀況具顯著且符合預影響。此結論揭示價格對健康之決定性角色。

This study constructs a model of health production to derive demand functions of nutrient intakes and behavior choices which depend upon prices and wages and applies a two-stage least squares to correct for the problems of endogeneity and measurement error in estimating the relationship among nutrition, behavior choices, and health in traditional epidemiological studies. Empirical results show that when integrating biomedicine and economic analysis, which corrects for the problems of endogeneity and measurement error, not only personal traits and observed health endowments but also the unbiased and consistent nutrient intakes and health behaviors are significant in explaining variations of health.