IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/25541.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Technological Progress and Health Convergence: The Case of Penicillin in Post-War Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Marcella Alsan
  • Vincenzo Atella
  • Jay Bhattacharya
  • Valentina Conti
  • Iván Mejía-Guevara
  • Grant Miller

Abstract

Throughout history, technological progress has transformed population health, but the distributional effects of these gains are unclear. New substitutes for older, more expensive health technologies can produce convergence in population health outcomes, but may also be prone to “elite capture” leading to divergence. This paper studies the case of penicillin using detailed mortality statistics and exploiting its sharply-timed introduction in Italy after World War II. We find penicillin reduced both the mean and standard deviation of infectious diseases mortality, leading to substantial convergence across disparate regions of Italy. Our results do not appear to be confounded by competing risks or mortality patterns associated with World War II.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcella Alsan & Vincenzo Atella & Jay Bhattacharya & Valentina Conti & Iván Mejía-Guevara & Grant Miller, 2019. "Technological Progress and Health Convergence: The Case of Penicillin in Post-War Italy," NBER Working Papers 25541, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25541
    Note: DAE EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w25541.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    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. Väinö Kannisto, 2000. "Measuring the compression of mortality," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 3(6).
    3. Vecchi, Giovanni, 2017. "Measuring Wellbeing: A History of Italian Living Standards," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199944590.
    4. Seema Jayachandran & Adriana Lleras-Muney & Kimberly V. Smith, 2010. "Modern Medicine and the Twentieth Century Decline in Mortality: Evidence on the Impact of Sulfa Drugs," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 118-146, April.
    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. Anderson, D. Mark & Charles, Kerwin Kofi & Rees, Daniel I. & Wang, Tianyi, 2021. "Water purification efforts and the black‐white infant mortality gap, 1906–1938," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).

    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. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2021. "Augmented human development in the age of globalization," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(4), pages 946-975, November.
    2. Alex Hollingsworth & Krzysztof Karbownik & Melissa A. Thomasson & Anthony Wray, 2022. "The Gift of a Lifetime: The Hospital, Modern Medicine, and Mortality," NBER Working Papers 30663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Federico, Giovanni & Tena Junguito, Antonio, 2023. "How many people on earth? World population 1800-1938," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 36431, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    4. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2015. "World Human Development: 1870–2007," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(2), pages 220-247, June.
    5. Shenoy, Ajay & Sharma, Bhavyaa & Xu, Guanghong & Kapoor, Rolly & Rho, Haedong Aiden & Sangha, Kinpritma, 2022. "God is in the rain: The impact of rainfall-induced early social distancing on COVID-19 outbreaks," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    6. Eswaran, Mukesh & Gallini, Nancy, 2017. "Can Competition Extend the Golden Age of Antibiotics?," Microeconomics.ca working papers -2017-9, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 19 Oct 2017.
    7. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Venkataramani, Atheendar, 2011. "The Captain of the Men of Death and His Shadow: Long-Run Impacts of Early Life Pneumonia Exposure," IZA Discussion Papers 6041, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Hoehn-Velasco, Lauren, 2018. "Explaining declines in US rural mortality, 1910–1933: The role of county health departments," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 42-72.
    9. Casper Worm Hansen, 2012. "Causes of mortality and development: Evidence from large health shocks in 20th century America," Economics Working Papers 2012-29, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    10. Cook, C. Justin & Fletcher, Jason M., 2022. "Heterogeneity in disease resistance and the impact of antibiotics in the US," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    11. Hansen, Casper Worm, 2014. "Cause of death and development in the US," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 143-153.
    12. Caroline Chuard & Hannes Schwandt & Alexander D. Becker & Masahiko Haraguchi, 2022. "Economic vs. Epidemiological Approaches to Measuring the Human Capital Impacts of Infectious Disease Elimination," NBER Working Papers 30202, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Bhaven N. Sampat, 2015. "Intellectual property rights and pharmaceuticals: The case of antibiotics," WIPO Economic Research Working Papers 26, World Intellectual Property Organization - Economics and Statistics Division.
    14. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, 2023. "Health, income, and the preston curve: A long view," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    15. Eswaran, Mukesh & Gallini, Nancy, 2016. "Rescuing the Golden Age of Antibiotics: Can Economics Help Avert the Looming Crisis?," Economics working papers nancy_gallini-2016-9, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 04 Jul 2016.
    16. Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri & Adolfo Meisel-Roca & María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo, 2019. "More than 100 years of improvements in living standards: the case of Colombia," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 13(3), pages 323-366, September.
    17. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2018. "Well-being Inequality in the Long Run," Working Papers 0131, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    18. Lazuka, Volha, 2017. "Infant health and later-life labour market outcomes : Evidence from the introduction of sulfa antibiotics in Sweden," Lund Papers in Economic History 154, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    19. Bhalotra, Sonia & Venkataramani, Atheendar & Walther, Selma, 2018. "Fertility and labor market responses to reductions in mortality," ISER Working Paper Series 2018-15, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    20. Mariko J. Klasing & Petros Milionis, 2020. "The international epidemiological transition and the education gender gap," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 37-86, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • N00 - Economic History - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:25541. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.