Winning Big but Feeling no Better? The Effect of Lottery Prizes on Physical and Mental Health
利用英国面板数据和彩票中奖的外生性，研究发现收入正向冲击显著改善心理健康，但对总体健康无显著影响，且中奖者吸烟和社交饮酒增加，解释了总体健康未改善的悖论。
We use British panel data to determine the exogenous impact of income on a number of individual health outcomes: general health status, mental health, physical health problems, and health behaviours (drinking and smoking). Lottery winnings allow us to make causal statements regarding the effect of income on health, as the amount won by winners is largely exogenous. Positive income shocks have no significant effect on self-assessed overall health, but a significant positive effect on mental health. This result seems paradoxical on two levels. First, there is a well-known gradient in health status in cross-sectional data, and second, general health should partly reflect mental health, so that we may expect both variables to move in the same direction. We propose a solution to the first apparent paradox by underlining the endogeneity of income. For the second, we show that lottery winnings are also associated with more smoking and social drinking. General health will reflect both mental health and the effect of these behaviours and so may not improve following a positive income shock.