TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Costa-Font, Joan
AU  - Gyori, Mario
        TI  - Can Unearned Income Make Us Fitter? Evidence from Lottery Wins
        PY  - 2020/Nov/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 13903
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp13903
        AB  - Although lower income is associated with overweight (and obesity), such an association is explained by a number of other confounding effects such as omitted variables (e.g., time preferences) explaining that income effect on overweight. We study the effect of unearned income shocks resulting from a lottery win (windfall income) on both overweight (alongside obesity and body mass index) distribution. We draw upon longitudinal data from the United Kingdom, a country where about half of a population plays the lottery. 
Our results suggest no evidence of contemporaneous effects of income on overweight, but a significant lagged effect. We find a reduction in overweight 12 months after a lottery win. A 1000-sterling win reduces overweight by 2-3 percentage points. Furthermore, we document a nonlinear effect up to 36 months after the lottery win, suggesting that small wins increase overweight and large wins reduce it. The effect of a lottery win varies depending on an individual's working hours and educational attainment. A lottery win among low education individuals decreases the risk of overweight.
        KW  - windfall income
KW  - body mass index (BMI)
KW  - obesity
KW  - overweight
KW  - income
KW  - lottery wins
        ER  -