Disease and Development Revisited

Bloom, David E.; Canning, David; Fink, Günther

doi:10.1086/677189

Cited by 117 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…() and Bloom et al . (). In reference to the theory of Nelson and Phelps () they argue that a healthy population is more capable of adopting and inventing technologies that foster income growth.…”

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confidence: 97%

“…Based on this argument, Bloom et al . () claim that the empirical model in AJ is misspecified. In particular, the concern raised by Bloom et al .…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In particular, the concern raised by Bloom et al . () is that life expectancy in 1940 is negatively correlated with the gains in life expectancy in the subsequent period, which makes them argue that initial life expectancy is an omitted variable. When controlling for life expectancy in 1940 they find that the results of AJ are reversed.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Rise in Life Expectancy and Economic Growth in the 20th Century

Hansen

Lønstrup

2015

The Economic Journal

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This research exploits conditional exogenous variation in mortality from the diffusion of modern medicine to study the effect of growth in life expectancy on the growth in GDP per capita. The empirical analysis establishes that countries that obtained higher growth rates of life expectancy due to this shock to mortality in the mid-twentieth century experienced lower growth rates of GDP per capita in the second half of the twentieth century. In addition, a negative relationship between initial level of life expectancy and the subsequent growth rate of GDP per capita is found.How did the unprecedented rise in life expectancy during the second half of the 20th century affect the economic development of nations? Relying on cross-country variation, the most studies find positive correlations between life expectancy and income. 1 In contrast to these studies, Acemoglu and Johnson (2007), henceforth AJ, exploit exogenous sources of within-country variations in life expectancy due to the diffusion of modern medicine from the 1950s onward and find a negative effect of the level of life expectancy on the level of GDP per capita.This article asks the question: How do the level and the growth rate of life expectancy affect the growth rate of GDP per capita? To answer this question, we extend the data set used by AJ with data on the variables of interest in 1900. These extra observations enable us to obtain growth rates of life expectancy and GDP per capita for two periods. Having two observations on growth rates allows us to control for unobserved country fixed effects which we show is crucial for the results. We follow AJ by using the potential treatment of 15 infectious diseases as an instrument for the growth rate of life expectancy. We show that this instrumental variable, which follows the same logic as a differences-in-differences estimator with continuous treatment, has strong predictive power for the growth rate of life expectancy even conditionally on initial life expectancy.The empirical analysis establishes that the growth rate of life expectancy had a negative impact on the growth rate of GDP per capita. This finding is robust to controlling for initial life expectancy and economic conditions as measured by log life demonstrate that the reverse mechanism, that is the influence of income on health, explains a large part of the positive cross-country correlations between life expectancy and GDP per capita. See also Weil (2014) for a comprehensive overview of the literature.

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confidence: 97%

“…Based on this argument, Bloom et al . () claim that the empirical model in AJ is misspecified. In particular, the concern raised by Bloom et al .…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Rise in Life Expectancy and Economic Growth in the 20th Century

Hansen

Lønstrup

2015

The Economic Journal

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“…mortality versus morbidity) and of whether, in today’s urbanized and globalized world, excess populations have the same impact as in the past (e.g. Bloom et al 2009; Bleakley 2010a). …”

Section: Theories Of the Health Transitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health and the Economy in the United States from 1750 to the Present

Costa

2015

Journal of Economic Literature

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I discuss the health transition in the United States, bringing new data to bear on health indicators, and investigating the changing relationship between health, income, and the environment. I argue that scientific advances played an outsize role and that health improvements were largest among the poor. Health improvements were not a precondition for modern economic growth. The gains to health are largest when the economy has moved from “brawn” to “brains” because this is when the wage returns to education are high, leading the healthy to obtain more education. More education may improve use of health knowledge, producing a virtuous cycle.

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“…Work by Bloom, Canning, and Sevilla was influential in articulating pathways to explain links between health and economic productivity, and it underscores how reproductive health improvements can stimulate economic growth. The overview outlined in Figure draws on theories of the demographic dividend, the qualitative‐quantity trade‐off of investments in children, the opportunity cost for women of child care and labor force participation, and the link of health to productivity . Figure illustrates possible pathways of how changes in reproductive health impact women's economic empowerment.…”

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confidence: 99%