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Accounting for the Effect of Health on Economic Growth

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David N. Weil

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Abstract

I use microeconomic estimates of the effect of health on individual outcomes to construct macroeconomic estimates of the proximate effect of health on GDP per capita. I employ avariety of methods to construct estimates of the return to health, which I combine with cross-country and historical data on height, adult survival rates, and age at menarche. Using my preferred estimate, eliminating health differences among countries would reduce the variance oflog GDP per worker by 9.9 percent, and reduce the ratio of GDP per worker at the 90th percentileto GDP per worker at the 10th percentile from 20.5 to 17.9. While this effect is economically significant, it is also substantially smaller than estimates of the effect of health on economic growth that are derived from cross-country regressions.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11455.

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Date of creation: Jul 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11455

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
O4 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

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  2. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. John Strauss & Duncan Thomas, 1998. "Health, Nutrition, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 766-817, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Card, David, 1999. "The causal effect of education on earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 30, pages 1801-1863 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Alwyn Young, 2004. "The Gift of the Dying: The Tragedy of AIDS and the Welfare of Future African Generations," NBER Working Papers 10991, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Gary S. Becker & Tomas J. Philipson & Rodrigo R. Soares, 2003. "The Quantity and Quality of Life and the Evolution of World Inequality," NBER Working Papers 9765, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Roderick Floud, 1998. "Height, Weight, and Body Mass of the British Population Since 1820," NBER Historical Working Papers 0108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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