IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jeclit/v53y2015i1p102-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Review of Angus Deaton's The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • David N. Weil

Abstract

This book explores the relationship between the material standard of living and health, both across countries and over time. Above all, Deaton is interested in the question of whether income growth contributes significantly to better health. His answer is no: saving lives in poor countries is not expensive, and there are many episodes of massive health improvements in the absence of income growth. As an alternative, he argues that the cross-sectional correlation between health and income is induced by variation in institutional quality, while over time, parallel improvements in income and health have been a result of advancing knowledge. (JEL E23, I12, I14, I15, O15, O47)

Suggested Citation

  • David N. Weil, 2015. "A Review of Angus Deaton's The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(1), pages 102-114, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:53:y:2015:i:1:p:102-14
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.53.1.102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jel.53.1.102
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/ds/5301/jel.53.1.102_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2007. "Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 925-985, December.
    2. Julian P. Cristia, 2007. "The Empirical Relationship Between Lifetime Earnings and Mortality: Working Paper 2007-11," Working Papers 19096, Congressional Budget Office.
    3. Floud,Roderick & Fogel,Robert W. & Harris,Bernard & Hong,Sok Chul, 2011. "The Changing Body," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521705615.
      • Floud,Roderick & Fogel,Robert W. & Harris,Bernard & Hong,Sok Chul, 2011. "The Changing Body," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521879750.
    4. Roderick Floud & Robert W. Fogel & Bernard Harris & Sok Chul Hong, 2011. "The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World since 1700," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number foge10-1, March.
    5. Samuel H. Preston & Michael R. Haines, 1991. "Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth-Century America," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number pres91-1, March.
    6. Weil, David N., 2014. "Health and Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 3, pages 623-682, Elsevier.
    7. Robert E. Lucas, 2000. "Some Macroeconomics for the 21st Century," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 159-168, Winter.
    8. Emilio Depetris†Chauvin & David N. Weil, 2018. "Malaria and Early African Development: Evidence from the Sickle Cell Trait," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(610), pages 1207-1234, May.
    9. Charles I. Jones, 2002. "Sources of U.S. Economic Growth in a World of Ideas," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 220-239, March.
    10. David Cutler & Grant Miller, 2005. "The role of public health improvements in health advances: The twentieth-century United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-22, February.
    11. Quamrul H. Ashraf & Ashley Lester & David N. Weil, 2009. "When Does Improving Health Raise GDP?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2008, Volume 23, pages 157-204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. David N. Well, 2007. "Accounting for the Effect Of Health on Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1265-1306.
    13. Hoyt Bleakley, 2007. "Disease and Development: Evidence from Hookworm Eradication in the American South," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 122(1), pages 73-117.
    14. Samuel H. Preston, 1996. "American Longevity: Past, Present, and Future," Center for Policy Research Policy Briefs 7, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    15. Robert W. Fogel & Nathaniel Grotte, 2011. "An Overview of The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World Since 1700," NBER Working Papers 16938, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alberto Batinti & Joan Costa‐Font & Timothy J. Hatton, 2022. "Voting Up? The Effects of Democracy and Franchise Extension on Human Stature," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 161-190, January.
    2. Massimo Tamberi, 2022. "Economic Growth, Scientific Progress And The Life Expectancy Increase," Working Papers 465, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    3. Bloom, David E. & Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2018. "Health and Economic Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 11939, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Rory Horner & David Hulme, 2019. "Global Development, Converging Divergence and Development Studies: A Rejoinder," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 50(2), pages 495-510, March.
    5. Caitlin M. Walsh & Takondwa Mwase & Manuela De Allegri, 2020. "How actors, processes, context and evidence influenced the development of Malawi's Health Sector Strategic Plan II," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(6), pages 1571-1592, November.
    6. Sri Hasnawati & Mustofa Usman & Ahmad Faisol & Faiz A. M. Elfaki, 2023. "Analysis and Modeling Gross Domestic Product, Carbon Dioxide Emission, Population Growth, and Life Expectancy at Birth: Case Study in Qatar," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(2), pages 467-483, March.
    7. Mohammad Mazharul Islam & Mohammad Nazrul Islam Mondal & Haitham Khoj, 2023. "Effects of Health Factors on GDP Growth: Empirical Evidence from Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Weil, David N., 2014. "Health and Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 3, pages 623-682, Elsevier.
    2. Dora L. Costa, 2015. "Health and the Economy in the United States from 1750 to the Present," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(3), pages 503-570, September.
    3. Gallardo-Albarrán, Daniel, 2018. "Health and economic development since 1900," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 228-237.
    4. Holger Strulik & Katharina Werner, 2016. "50 is the new 30—long-run trends of schooling and retirement explained by human aging," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 165-187, June.
    5. Ryan Masters & Robert Hummer & Daniel Powers & Audrey Beck & Shih-Fan Lin & Brian Finch, 2014. "Long-Term Trends in Adult Mortality for U.S. Blacks and Whites: An Examination of Period- and Cohort-Based Changes," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(6), pages 2047-2073, December.
    6. Marco-Gracia, Francisco J. & Puche, Javier, 2021. "The association between male height and lifespan in rural Spain, birth cohorts 1835-1939," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    7. Timothy J. Hatton, 2015. "Stature and Sibship: Historical Evidence," CEH Discussion Papers 039, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2007. "Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 925-985, December.
    9. Mazhar, Ummad & Rehman, Fahd, 2022. "Productivity, obesity, and human capital: Panel data evidence," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    10. Enrique Acosta & Stacey A. Hallman & Lisa Y. Dillon & Nadine Ouellette & Robert Bourbeau & D. Ann Herring & Kris Inwood & David J. D. Earn & Joaquin Madrenas & Matthew S. Miller & Alain Gagnon, 2019. "Determinants of Influenza Mortality Trends: Age-Period-Cohort Analysis of Influenza Mortality in the United States, 1959–2016," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(5), pages 1723-1746, October.
    11. José Joaquín García-Gómez & Juan Diego Pérez-Cebada, 2020. "A Socio-Environmental History of a Copper Mining Company: Rio-Tinto Company Limited (1874–1930)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-17, June.
    12. Aditya Goenka & Lin Liu, 2012. "Infectious diseases and endogenous fluctuations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(1), pages 125-149, May.
    13. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    14. Sunder, Marco, 2013. "The height gap in 19th-century America: Net-nutritional advantage of the elite increased at the onset of modern economic growth," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 245-258.
    15. Daniel Gallardo‐Albarrán, 2020. "Sanitary infrastructures and the decline of mortality in Germany, 1877–1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 730-757, August.
    16. Kesztenbaum, Lionel & Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, 2017. "Sewers’ diffusion and the decline of mortality: The case of Paris, 1880–1914," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 174-186.
    17. David Cutler & Angus Deaton & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "The Determinants of Mortality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 97-120, Summer.
    18. Stefan Bauernschuster & Anastasia Driva & Erik Hornung, 2020. "Bismarck’s Health Insurance and the Mortality Decline [Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(5), pages 2561-2607.
    19. Philipp Ager & Casper Worm Hansen & Peter Sandholt Jensen, 2018. "Fertility and Early-Life Mortality: Evidence from Smallpox Vaccination in Sweden," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 487-521.
    20. Peter Juul Egedesø & Casper Worm Hansen & Peter Sandholt Jensen, 2020. "Preventing the White Death: Tuberculosis Dispensaries," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(629), pages 1288-1316.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:53:y:2015:i:1:p:102-14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.