IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bro/econwp/2003-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Much of Cross-Country Income Variation is Explained by Health?

Author

Abstract

We use development accounting techniques to assess the contribution of health to differences in income per capita among countries. Rather than rely on regressions in aggregate data, we build up estimates of the effect of health starting from microeconomic data. We examine both a particular condition, anemia, and a proxy for general health, the adult survival rate. We find that differences in anemia explain 1.3 percent of the log variance of income per capita, and that differences in adult survival explain 19 percent of the log variance of income per capita. The latter figure is almost one third of the variation in output that is left unexplained by other measures of factor accumulation. (JEL: O47, I10) Copyright (c) 2003 The European Economic Association.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Gauri Kartini Shastry & David N. Weil, 2003. "How Much of Cross-Country Income Variation is Explained by Health?," Working Papers 2003-08, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bro:econwp:2003-08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.brown.edu/academics/economics/sites/brown.edu.academics.economics/files/uploads/wp2003/2003-8_paper.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    2. Levin, Henry M, 1986. "A Benefit-Cost Analysis of Nutritional Programs for Anemia Reduction," World Bank Research Observer, World Bank Group, vol. 1(2), pages 219-245, July.
    3. repec:idb:idbbks:321 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Peter Klenow & Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, 1997. "The Neoclassical Revival in Growth Economics: Has It Gone Too Far?," NBER Chapters,in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 73-114 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. repec:idb:brikps:42218 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. David N. Weil, 2005. "Accounting for the Effect of Health on Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 11455, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Felicia Marie Knaul & Edmundo Murrugarra & Carlos Hernández Alvarez & Rafael Cortez & William D. Savedoff & Jaime Espinosa Ferrando & Rocío Ribero Medina & Martín Valdivia & T. Paul Schultz & Jairo Nú, 2000. "Wealth from Health: Linking Social Investments to Earnings in Latin America," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 42218 edited by William D. Savedoff & T. Paul Schultz, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - 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:bro:econwp:2003-08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Brown Economics Webmaster). General contact details of provider: .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.