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Disease and Development Revisited

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  • David E. Bloom

    () (Harvard School of Public Health)

  • David Canning

    () (Harvard School of Public Health)

  • Gunther Fink

    () (Harvard School of Public Health)

Abstract

In a recent paper, Acemoglu and Johnson (2007) argue that the large increases in population health witnessed in the 20th century may have lowered income levels. We argue that this result depends crucially on their assumption that initial health and income do not affect subsequent economic growth. Using their data we reject this assumption in favor of a model of conditional convergence, with income adjusting to its steady state over time. We show that, allowing for conditional convergence, exogenous improvements in health due to technical advances associated with the epidemiological transition appear to have increased income levels.

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Paper provided by Program on the Global Demography of Aging in its series PGDA Working Papers with number 4409.

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Date of creation: Jun 2009
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Handle: RePEc:gdm:wpaper:4409

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Keywords: Disease; development; economic growth; health;

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References

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  1. Durlauf, Steven N. & Johnson, Paul A. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2005. "Growth Econometrics," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 555-677 Elsevier.
  2. Arellano, Manuel & Bond, Stephen, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 277-97, April.
  3. Jere R. Behrman & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2004. "Returns to Birthweight," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 586-601, 06.
  4. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2006. "Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 12269, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. James J. Heckman, 2007. "The Economics, Technology and Neuroscience of Human Capability Formation," IZA Discussion Papers 2875, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  6. Hoyt Bleakley, 2006. "Malaria In The Americas: A Retrospective Analysis Of Childhood Exposure," DOCUMENTOS CEDE 003185, UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES-CEDE.
  7. Hoyt Bleakley, 2009. "Comment on "When Does Improving Health Raise GDP?"," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2008, Volume 23, pages 205-220 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Case, Anne & Fertig, Angela & Paxson, Christina, 2005. "The lasting impact of childhood health and circumstance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 365-389, March.
  9. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Sevilla, Jaypee, 2004. "The Effect of Health on Economic Growth: A Production Function Approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 1-13, January.
  10. Quamrul H. Ashraf & Ashley Lester & David N. Weil, 2008. "When Does Improving Health Raise GDP?," NBER Working Papers 14449, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. David Weil, 2006. "Accounting for the Effect of Health on Economic Growth," DEGIT Conference Papers c011_031, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
  12. Richard Blundell & Steve Bond, 1995. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," IFS Working Papers W95/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
  13. Edward Miguel & Michael Kremer, 2004. "Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 159-217, 01.
  14. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-26, November.
  15. Hoyt Bleakley, 2003. "Disease and Development: Evidence from the American South," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 376-386, 04/05.
  16. Arie ten Cate, 2004. "Refinement of the partial adjustment model using continuous-time econometrics," CPB Discussion Paper 41, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Health, growth and small samples
    by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2010-06-29 14:48:00
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
  1. Cervellati, Matteo & Sunde, Uwe, 2009. "Life Expectancy and Economic Growth: The Role of the Demographic Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 7361, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  2. Strittmatter, Anthony & Sunde, Uwe, 2011. "Health and Economic Development: Evidence from the Introduction of Public Health Care," IZA Discussion Papers 5901, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Jeremy Barofsky & Claire Chase & Tobenna Anekwe & Farshad Farzadfar, 2011. "The Economic Effects of Malaria Eradication: Evidence from an Intervention in Uganda," PGDA Working Papers 7011, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
  4. Brainerd, Elizabeth, 2010. "The Demographic Transformation of Post-Socialist Countries," Working Papers UNU-WIDER Working Paper W, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
  5. Anca Cotet & Kevin K. Tsui, 2010. "Resource Curse or Malthusian Trap? Evidence from Oil Discoveries and Extractions," Working Papers 201001, Ball State University, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2010.
  6. Carl-Johan, Dalgaard & Henrik, Hansen, 2010. "Evaluating Aid Effectiveness in the Aggregate: A critical assessment of the evidence," MPRA Paper 23026, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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