Interdependency among addictive behaviours and time/risk preferences: Discrete choice model analysis of smoking, drinking, and gambling

This paper simultaneously measures the rate of time preference and the coefficient of risk aversion, as well as investigates the interdependencies of four addictive behaviours: smoking, drinking, pachinko (a popular Japanese form of pinball gambling), and horse betting among a sample of the Japanese population. We reach two main conclusions. First, there are significant interdependencies among the four addictive behaviours, in particular between smoking and drinking and between gambling on pachinko and the horses. Second, we conclude that the higher the time preference rate and the lower the risk aversion coefficient becomes, the more likely individuals smoke, drink frequently, and gamble on pachinko and the horses. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.