Seminario di Pietro Biroli

07.02.2017

Gene-by-environment interaction in health behaviors: theory and empirics 

Seminario di Pietro Biroli, University of Zurich
Co-authors:  Laura Bierut (Washington University School of Medicine) Titus J. Galama (University of Southern California, Dornsife College Center for Economic and Social Research) Kevin Thom (New York University)

We present a lifecycle theory of gene-by-environment interplay in unhealthy behavior. We start with the canonical theory for health due to Grossman (1972) and add genetic heterogeneity, modeled as changing the utility cost of health investments and the production function of health. The theory provides a conceptual framework for analyzing the role of genetics in shifting incentives to invest in health behaviors, such as smoking and overeating, and for predicting how socio-economic status moderates this process. Applying this model to rich datasets with both genetic and socio-economic information, we find that gene-environment interaction (GxE) plays a role in prediciting both obesity and smoking.