IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/rdevec/v27y2023i4p2061-2103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Years of life lost to revolution and war in Iran

Author

Listed:
  • Mohammad Reza Farzanegan

Abstract

How was life expectancy in Iran affected by the Islamic Revolution and subsequent war with Iraq? This study examines the joint effect of regime change and the war against Iraq on life expectancy in Iran between 1978 and 1988. If there had been no revolution and war in Iran, how would the life expectancy of Iranians have developed? To answer this question, we use a synthetic control model to construct a counterfactual Iran based on a weighted average of other comparable countries, which reproduces the situation of pre‐revolution Iran but does not experience the revolution and war. We then compare the life expectancies of the counterfactual and actual Iran that underwent a regime change and war with Iraq. Our results indicate that an average Iranian's total life expectancy would have been approximately five years longer without the revolution and war. The revolution had a moderate long‐term impact on total life expectancy at birth, with the most significant influence being attributed to the war itself, particularly on male life expectancy. Our main findings are robust to a series of tests, including placebo tests. We investigate possible reasons that may explain the impact on longevity.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2023. "Years of life lost to revolution and war in Iran," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 2061-2103, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:27:y:2023:i:4:p:2061-2103
    DOI: 10.1111/rode.13030
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.13030
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/rode.13030?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem & Ryder, Harl E. & Weil, David N., 2000. "Mortality decline, human capital investment, and economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 1-23, June.
    2. Théophile T. Azomahou & Raouf Boucekkine & Bity Diene, 2009. "A closer look at the relationship between life expectancy and economic growth," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 5(2), pages 201-244, June.
    3. Fogel, Robert W, 1994. "Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 369-395, June.
    4. T. Paul Schultz, 1999. "Health and Schooling Investments in Africa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 67-88, Summer.
    5. Lant Pritchett & Lawrence H. Summers, 1996. "Wealthier is Healthier," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(4), pages 841-868.
    6. John Strauss & Duncan Thomas, 1998. "Health, Nutrition, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 766-817, June.
    7. Eric A. Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2008. "The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 607-668, September.
    8. Gradstein, Mark & Kaganovich, Michael, 2004. "Aging population and education finance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2469-2485, December.
    9. Matteo Cervellati & Uwe Sunde, 2011. "Life expectancy and economic growth: the role of the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 99-133, June.
    10. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2015. "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3150-3182, October.
    11. repec:wbk:wbpubs:12425 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. 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.
    13. Bjorvatn, Kjetil & Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza, 2013. "Demographic Transition in Resource Rich Countries: A Blessing or a Curse?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 337-351.
    14. Hansen, Casper Worm, 2012. "The relation between wealth and health: Evidence from a world panel of countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 175-176.
    15. Rodrigo R. Soares, 2005. "Mortality Reductions, Educational Attainment, and Fertility Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 580-601, June.
    16. Mayer, David, 2001. "The Long-Term Impact of Health on Economic Growth in Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1025-1033, June.
    17. Zakir Husain & Mousumi Dutta & Nidhi Chowdhary, 2014. "Is Health Wealth? Results of a Panel Data Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 121-143, May.
    18. Howitt, Peter & Mayer-Foulkes, David, 2005. "R&D, Implementation, and Stagnation: A Schumpeterian Theory of Convergence Clubs," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(1), pages 147-177, February.
    19. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    20. Susan Athey & Guido W. Imbens, 2017. "The State of Applied Econometrics: Causality and Policy Evaluation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 3-32, Spring.
    21. de la Croix, David & Licandro, Omar, 1999. "Life expectancy and endogenous growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 255-263, November.
    22. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    23. Peter Howitt, 2000. "Endogenous Growth and Cross-Country Income Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 829-846, September.
    24. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2022. "The Economic Cost of the Islamic Revolution and War for Iran: Synthetic Counterfactual Evidence," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 129-149, February.
    25. Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2005. "The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 189-221.
    26. Faruqee, Hamid & Muhleisen, Martin, 2003. "Population aging in Japan: demographic shock and fiscal sustainability," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 185-210, April.
    27. Zhang, Junsen & Zhang, Jie & Lee, Ronald, 2001. "Mortality decline and long-run economic growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 485-507, June.
    28. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem, 2002. "Does the Mortality Decline Promote Economic Growth?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 411-439, December.
    29. Gyimah-Brempong, Kwabena & Wilson, Mark, 2004. "Health human capital and economic growth in Sub-Saharan African and OECD countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 296-320, May.
    30. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    31. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Bryan Graham, 2003. "Longevity and Life‐cycle Savings," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(3), pages 319-338, September.
    32. 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.
    33. Kinugasa, Tomoko & Mason, Andrew, 2007. "Why Countries Become Wealthy: The Effects of Adult Longevity on Saving," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 1-23, January.
    34. Coile, Courtney & Diamond, Peter & Gruber, Jonathan & Jousten, Alain, 2002. "Delays in claiming social security benefits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 357-385, June.
    35. Michael D. Hurd & Daniel L. McFadden & Li Gan, 1998. "Subjective Survival Curves and Life Cycle Behavior," NBER Chapters, in: Inquiries in the Economics of Aging, pages 259-309, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    36. World Bank, 2005. "World Development Indicators 2005," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12426.
    37. Firpo Sergio & Possebom Vitor, 2018. "Synthetic Control Method: Inference, Sensitivity Analysis and Confidence Sets," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-26, September.
    38. Eric A. Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2015. "The economic impact of educational quality," Chapters, in: Pauline Dixon & Steve Humble & Chris Counihan (ed.), Handbook of International Development and Education, chapter 2, pages 6-19, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    39. Alsan, Marcella & Bloom, David E. & Canning, David, 2006. "The effect of population health on foreign direct investment inflows to low- and middle-income countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 613-630, April.
    40. Belgi Turan, 2020. "Life expectancy and economic development: Evidence from microdata," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 949-972, August.
    41. Alberto Abadie & Javier Gardeazabal, 2003. "The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 113-132, March.
    42. Samer Hamidi & Khadeegha Alzouebi & Fevzi Akinci & Ferhat D. Zengul, 2018. "Examining the association between educational attainment and life expectancy in MENA region: A panel data analysis," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 1124-1136, October.
    43. Emily Oster & Ira Shoulson & E. Ray Dorsey, 2013. "Limited Life Expectancy, Human Capital and Health Investments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1977-2002, August.
    44. Hanushek, Eric A., 2013. "Economic growth in developing countries: The role of human capital," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 204-212.
    45. Yoram Ben-Porath, 1967. "The Production of Human Capital and the Life Cycle of Earnings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(4), pages 352-352.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Zakir Husain & Mousumi Dutta & Nidhi Chowdhary, 2014. "Is Health Wealth? Results of a Panel Data Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 121-143, May.
    2. Bloom, David E. & Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2018. "Health and Economic Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 11939, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Kotschy, Rainer & Prettner, Klaus & Schünemann, Johannes, 2024. "Health and economic growth: Reconciling the micro and macro evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    4. Aysit Tansel & Ceyhan Ozturk & Erkan Erdil, 2021. "The Impact of Body Mass Index on Growth, Schooling, Productivity, and Savings: A Cross-Country Study," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 2118, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    5. Husain, Muhammad Jami, 2010. "Contribution of health to economic development: A survey and overview," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-52.
    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. 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.
    8. Francesco Ricci & Marios Zachariadis, 2013. "Education Externalities on Longevity," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(319), pages 404-440, July.
    9. Husain, Muhammad Jami, 2009. "Contribution of health to economic development: a survey and overview," Economics Discussion Papers 2009-40, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Boachie, Micheal Kofi, 2015. "Effect of health on economic growth in Ghana:An application of ARDL bounds test to cointegration," MPRA Paper 67201, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Keith Blackburn & Rashmi Sarmah, 2008. "Corruption, development and demography," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 341-362, October.
    12. Declan French, 2012. "Causation between health and income: a need to panic," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 583-601, April.
    13. Luciano Fanti & Luca Gori, 2014. "Endogenous fertility, endogenous lifetime and economic growth: the role of child policies," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(2), pages 529-564, April.
    14. Oliver Fritz & Peter Mayerhofer & Reinhard Haller & Gerhard Streicher & Florian Bachner & Herwig Ostermann, 2013. "Die regionalwirtschaftlichen Effekte der österreichischen Krankenanstalten," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46672.
    15. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2016. "Interrelationships between Social and human Capital, and Economic Growth," MPRA Paper 89646, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2017.
    16. Dedry, Antoine & Onder, Harun & Pestieau, Pierre, 2017. "Aging, social security design, and capital accumulation," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 145-155.
    17. Annarita BALDANZI & Alberto BUCCI & Klaus PRETTNER, 2016. "The Effects of Health Investments on Human Capital and R&D-Driven Economic Growth," Departmental Working Papers 2016-17, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    18. Peter Lorentzen & John McMillan & Romain Wacziarg, 2008. "Death and development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 81-124, June.
    19. 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.
    20. Rajesh Sharma, 2018. "Health and economic growth: Evidence from dynamic panel data of 143 years," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-20, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • F51 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Conflicts; Negotiations; Sanctions
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • Q34 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Natural Resources and Domestic and International Conflicts

    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:bla:rdevec:v:27:y:2023:i:4:p:2061-2103. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1363-6669 .

    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.