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A Theory of Rational Addiction
Abstract
We develop a theory of rational addiction in which rationality means a consistent plan to maximize utility over time. Strong addiction to a good requires a big effect of past consumption of the good on current consumption. Such powerful complementarities cause some steady states to be unstable. They are an important part of our analysis because even small deviations from the consumption at an unstable steady state can lead to large cumulative rises over time in addictive consumption or to rapid falls in consumption to abstention. Our theory also implies that "cold turkey" is used to end strong addictions, that addicts often go on binges, that addicts respond more to permanent than to temporary changes in prices of addictive goods, and that anxiety and tensions can precipitate an addiction.
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Citations
Cited by
Out of Control: Visceral Influences on Behavior
Loewenstein, G. (1996) · Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes · doi:10.1006/obhd.1996.0028 · Cited by 2,610
Hodgson, G. M. (2006) · Journal of Economic Issues · doi:10.1080/00213624.2006.11506879 · Cited by 2,108
Impulsivity and cigarette smoking: delay discounting in current, never, and ex-smokers
Bickel, W. K., Odum, A. L., & Madden, G. J. (1999) · Psychopharmacology · doi:10.1007/pl00005490 · Cited by 1,433
Allcott, H., & Rogers, T. (2014) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.104.10.3003 · Cited by 1,340
Toward a behavioral economic understanding of drug dependence: delay discounting processes
Bickel, W. K., & Marsch, L. A. (2001) · Addiction · doi:10.1046/j.1360-0443.2001.961736.x · Cited by 1,117
Metadata
- Authors
- Becker, G. S., & Murphy, K. M.
- Venue
- Journal of Political Economy
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 1988-08
- Volume
- 96
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 675-700
- ISSN
- 0022-3808 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-534X
- OpenAlex
- W2027182904
- Cited by
- 3,823
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 17.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
