Macchi, Elisa   <br/><br/>
Worth your weight: Experimental evidence on the benefits of obesity in low-income countries 

 - The American Economic Review   
 - 113(9), Sep, 2023: p.2287-2322 
<br/><br/> Author study the economic value of obesity—a status symbol in poor countries associated with raised health risks. Randomizing decision-makers in Kampala, Uganda to view weight-manipulated portraits, I find that obesity is perceived as a reliable signal of wealth but not of beauty or health. Thus, leveraging a real-stakes experiment involving professional loan officers, I show that being obese facilitates access to credit. The large obesity premium, comparable to raising borrower self-reported earnings by over 60 percent, is driven by asymmetric information and drops significantly when providing more financial information. Notably, obesity benefits and wealth-signaling value are commonly overestimated, suggesting market distortions.- Reproduced <br/><br/>https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20211879<br/>