IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v10y2013i11p5936-5952d30265.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Biomedical Progress Rates as New Parameters for Models of Economic Growth in Developed Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Zhavoronkov

    (The Biogerontology Research Foundation, London W1J 5NE, UK
    Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141700, Russia
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Maria Litovchenko

    (The Biogerontology Research Foundation, London W1J 5NE, UK
    Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141700, Russia
    Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich 80539, Germany
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

Abstract

While the doubling of life expectancy in developed countries during the 20th century can be attributed mostly to decreases in child mortality, the trillions of dollars spent on biomedical research by governments, foundations and corporations over the past sixty years are also yielding longevity dividends in both working and retired population. Biomedical progress will likely increase the healthy productive lifespan and the number of years of government support in the old age. In this paper we introduce several new parameters that can be applied to established models of economic growth: the biomedical progress rate, the rate of clinical adoption and the rate of change in retirement age. The biomedical progress rate is comprised of the rejuvenation rate (extending the productive lifespan) and the non-rejuvenating rate (extending the lifespan beyond the age at which the net contribution to the economy becomes negative). While staying within the neoclassical economics framework and extending the overlapping generations (OLG) growth model and assumptions from the life cycle theory of saving behavior, we provide an example of the relations between these new parameters in the context of demographics, labor, households and the firm.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Zhavoronkov & Maria Litovchenko, 2013. "Biomedical Progress Rates as New Parameters for Models of Economic Growth in Developed Countries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-17, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:10:y:2013:i:11:p:5936-5952:d:30265
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/10/11/5936/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/10/11/5936/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lars Weber, 2010. "Demographic Change and Economic Growth," Contributions to Economics, Springer, number 978-3-7908-2590-9.
    2. Felder, Stefan & Meier, Markus & Schmitt, Horst, 2000. "Health care expenditure in the last months of life," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 679-695, September.
    3. Holger Strulik & Sebastian Vollmer, 2013. "Long-run trends of human aging and longevity," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1303-1323, October.
    4. Ken-ichi Hashimoto & Ken Tabata, 2010. "Population aging, health care, and growth," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(2), pages 571-593, March.
    5. Oded_Galor, 2004. "From Stagnation to Growth:Unified Growth Theory," Working Papers 2004-15, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    6. T. W. Swan, 1956. "ECONOMIC GROWTH and CAPITAL ACCUMULATION," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(2), pages 334-361, November.
    7. Ichiro Muto & Takemasa Oda & Nao Sudo, 2016. "Macroeconomic Impact of Population Aging in Japan: A Perspective from an Overlapping Generations Model," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(3), pages 408-442, August.
    8. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Summers, Lawrence H, 1981. "The Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 706-732, August.
    9. Klaus Prettner & Alexia Prskawetz, 2010. "Demographic change in models of endogenous economic growth. A survey," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 18(4), pages 593-608, December.
    10. Galor, Oded, 2005. "From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 171-293, Elsevier.
    11. Nicole Maestas & Julie Zissimopoulos, 2010. "How Longer Work Lives Ease the Crunch of Population Aging," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 139-160, Winter.
    12. Rosa Aisa & Fernando Pueyo, 2013. "Population aging, health care, and growth: a comment on the effects of capital accumulation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1285-1301, October.
    13. Paul M. Romer, 1994. "The Origins of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 3-22, Winter.
    14. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    15. Menahem E. Yaari, 1965. "Uncertain Lifetime, Life Insurance, and the Theory of the Consumer," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 32(2), pages 137-150.
    16. Barer, Morris L. & Evans, Robert G. & Hertzman, Clyde & Lomas, Jonathan, 1987. "Aging and health care utilization: New evidence on old fallacies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 24(10), pages 851-862, January.
    17. Li, Hongbin & Zhang, Jie & Zhang, Junsen, 2007. "Effects of longevity and dependency rates on saving and growth: Evidence from a panel of cross countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 138-154, September.
    18. Crimmins, Eileen M. & Saito, Yasuhiko, 2001. "Trends in healthy life expectancy in the United States, 1970-1990: gender, racial, and educational differences," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(11), pages 1629-1641, June.
    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. Kawalec Paweł, 2020. "The dynamics of theories of economic growth: An impact of Unified Growth Theory," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 6(2), pages 19-44, June.
    2. Strulik, Holger & Prettner, Klaus & Prskawetz, Alexia, 2010. "R\&D-based Growth in the Post-modern Era," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-457, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    3. Heijdra, Ben J. & Romp, Ward E., 2009. "Human capital formation and macroeconomic performance in an ageing small open economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 725-744, March.
    4. Stefanescu, Răzvan & Dumitriu, Ramona, 2015. "Creşterea economică a României între 1980 şi 2013 [The Economic Growth of Romania between 1980 and 2013]," MPRA Paper 61592, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Calistus N Ngonghala & Mateusz M Pluciński & Megan B Murray & Paul E Farmer & Christopher B Barrett & Donald C Keenan & Matthew H Bonds, 2014. "Poverty, Disease, and the Ecology of Complex Systems," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-9, April.
    6. Guo, Rongxing & Yang, Kaizhong & Liu, Yuhui, 2020. "Explaining the human and cultural puzzles: A new development theory✰," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    7. Claude Diebolt & Faustine Perrin, 2016. "Growth Theories," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 1, pages 177-195, Springer.
    8. Thomas I. Renström & Luca Spataro, 2015. "Population Growth and Human Capital: A Welfarist Approach," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83, pages 110-141, December.
    9. Johnston, Lauren A., 2020. "China’s Economic Demography Transition Strategy: A Population Weighted Approach to the Economy and Policy," GLO Discussion Paper Series 593, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    10. Rath, Badri Narayan, 2016. "Does the digital divide across countries lead to convergence? New international evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 75-82.
    11. James Foreman-Peck & Peng Zhou, 2021. "Fertility versus productivity: a model of growth with evolutionary equilibria," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 1073-1104, July.
    12. Thomas Baudin, 2011. "Family Policies: What Does the Standard Endogenous Fertility Model Tell Us?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(4), pages 555-593, August.
    13. Turnovsky, S., 2000. "Growth in an Open Economy: some Recent Developments," Papers 5, Warwick - Development Economics Research Centre.
    14. Parantap Basu & Alessandra Guariglia, 2008. "Does Low Education Delay Structural Transformation?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(1), pages 104-127, July.
    15. 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).
    16. Ralph Hippe & Joerg Baten, 2011. "Regional Inequality in Human Capital Formation in Europe, 1790 - 1880," Working Papers 11-07, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    17. Schäfer, Andreas & Prettner, Klaus, 2016. "The fall and rise of inequality," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145806, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Kunting Chen, 2012. "Analysis of the Great Divergence under a Unified Endogenous Growth Model," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 13(2), pages 317-353, November.
    19. Klaus Prettner, 2012. "Public education, technological change and economic prosperity: semi-endogenous growth revisited," PGDA Working Papers 9012, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    20. Sunde, Uwe & Cervellati, Matteo, 2007. "Human Capital, Mortality and Fertility: A Unified Theory of the Economic and Demographic Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 6384, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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:gam:jijerp:v:10:y:2013:i:11:p:5936-5952:d:30265. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.