The thesis consists of an introductory part and four self-contained papers. Paper [I] theoretically analyzes how the level and uncertainty of future prospects affect incentives to abstain from sexual risk taking in the presence of HIV. The results suggest that, for individuals with limited...

This discussion paper resulted in the publication 'Wealth and Health Behavior: Testing the Concept of a Health Cost' (2014). Volume 72, pages 197-220.<P> Wealthier individuals engage in healthier behavior. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by developing a theory of health behavior, and...</p>

Wealthier individuals engage in healthier behavior. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by exploiting both inheritances and lottery winnings to test a theory of health behavior. We distinguish between the direct monetary cost and the indirect health cost (value of health lost) of...

This paper has a dual purpose. First, I present a new modeling of partial naivete, and apply this to the analysis of procrastination. The decision maker is assumed to have stationary behavior and to be partially naive in the sense of perceiving that his current preferences may persist in the...

This research presents a new scale, the health regulatory focus scale, which measures an individual's tendency to use promotion or prevention strategies in the pursuit of health goals. We conducted five studies in France to develop the scale which is made up of two subscales for prevention and...

This research describes the development of the Health Regulatory Focus Scale (HRFS), which was designed to capture individual tendency to use avoidance or approach strategies during health goal pursuit. Scale development procedures confirmed the structure of the scale and validated its...