IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdi/wpaper/998.html

Survival Convergence: Specification Matters

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher GRIGORIOU

    (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le Développement International(CERDI))

Abstract

Retaining as a “Millennium Development Goal” a decrease by two thirds in child mortality whatever its initial level assumes that the target elasticity of child mortality may be the same in all the developing countries. We show that such an assumption is not perfectly consistent with the bounded characteristic of the child mortality indicator. We propose to use the logit transformation of such bounded human development indicators to have appropriate estimates of human convergence: this provides the best specification of the overall change in child survival among countries. Applied to child survival on a cross-section basis for 166 countries and over a thirty-year period (1970-99), this measure shows no evidence of absolute convergence but on the contrary a highly significant divergence.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher GRIGORIOU, 2008. "Survival Convergence: Specification Matters," Working Papers 200815, CERDI.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdi:wpaper:998
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://publi.cerdi.org/ed/2008/2008.15.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bidani, Benu & Ravallion, Martin, 1997. "Decomposing social indicators using distributional data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 125-139, March.
    2. Ram, Rati, 1998. "Forty Years of the Life Span Revolution: An Exploration of the Roles of "Convergence," Income, and Policy," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(4), pages 849-857, July.
    3. L. G. Godfrey & M. R. Wickens, 1981. "Testing Linear and Log-Linear Regressions for Functional Form," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(3), pages 487-496.
    4. Sudhir Anand & Martin Ravallion, 1993. "Human Development in Poor Countries: On the Role of Private Incomes and Public Services," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 133-150, Winter.
    5. Filmer, Deon & Hammer, Jeffrey S & Pritchett, Lant H, 2000. "Weak Links in the Chain: A Diagnosis of Health Policy in Poor Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 15(2), pages 199-224, August.
    6. Hobijn, Bart & Franses, Philip Hans, 2001. "Are living standards converging?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 171-200, July.
    7. Randa Sab & Stephen C. Smith, 2002. "Human Capital Convergence: A Joint Estimation Approach," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 49(2), pages 1-3.
    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. Christopher Grigoriou, 2011. "Survival Convergence: Specification Matters," CERDI Working papers halshs-00556799, HAL.
    2. Patrick GUILLAUMONT & Christopher GRIGORIOU, 2008. "Child Mortality Reacts to Relative Prices," Working Papers 200814, CERDI.
    3. Fiseha Gebregziabher & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, 2014. "Social Spending and Aggregate Welfare in Developing and Transition Economies," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-082, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Gebregziabher, Fiseha & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2014. "Social spending and aggregate welfare in developing and transition economies," WIDER Working Paper Series 082, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Christopher GRIGORIOU & Grégoire ROTA-GRAZIOSI, 2005. "Why do Education Expenditures Fail to Reduce Child Labor? Looking for an Optimal Composition of the Social Expenditures," Working Papers 200517, CERDI.
    6. Grigoriou, Christopher & Guillaumont, Patrick & Yang, Wenyan, 2005. "Child mortality under Chinese reforms," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 441-464.
    7. Yusuke Kamiya, 2010. "Determinants of Health in Developing Countries:Cross-Country Evidence," OSIPP Discussion Paper 10E009, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    8. Delgadillo Chavarria, Carlos Bruno, 2019. "Gasto Público Social, Gobernanza y Desarrollo Humano: Una Aplicación con Datos Municipales de Bolivia: 1994-2008 [Social Public Expenditure, Governance and Human Development: An Application with Mu," MPRA Paper 95552, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 04 Aug 2019.
    9. Christopher GRIGORIOU & Patrick GUILLAUMONT, 2003. "A Dynamic Child Survival Function: Natural Convergence and Economic Policy," Working Papers 200333, CERDI.
    10. Neumayer, Eric, 2003. "Beyond income: convergence in living standards, big time," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 275-296, September.
    11. Galina Besstremyannaya, 2015. "Measuring the effect of health insurance companies on the quality of healthcare systems with kernel and parametric regressions," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 3-20.
    12. Haddad, Lawrence James & Smith, Lisa C., 1999. "Explaining child malnutrition in developing countries," FCND discussion papers 60, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    13. Susan Harkness, 2004. "Social and Political Indicators of Human Well-being," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2004-33, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Bienvenido Ortega & Antonio Casquero & Jesús Sanjuán, 2016. "Corruption and Convergence in Human Development: Evidence from 69 Countries During 1990–2012," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 691-719, June.
    15. Estache, Antonio & Gonzalez, Marianela & Trujillo,Lourdes, 2007. "Government expenditures on education, health, and infrastructure : a naive look at levels, outcomes, and efficiency," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4219, The World Bank.
    16. Keith Blackburn & Gonzalo F. Forgues-Puccio, 2011. "Foreign aid - a fillip for development or a fuel for corruption?," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 158, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    17. Lee, Jong-Wha & Francisco, Ruth, 2012. "Human capital accumulation in emerging Asia, 1970–2030," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 76-86.
    18. James W. Shaw & William C. Horrace & Ronald J. Vogel, 2002. "The Productivity of Pharmaceuticals in Improving Health: An Analysis of the OECD Health Data," HEW 0206001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 11 May 2003.
    19. Pradhan, Menno & Sahn, David E. & Younger, Stephen D., 2003. "Decomposing world health inequality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 271-293, March.
    20. Micheal Kofi Boachie & Tatjana Põlajeva & Albert Opoku Frimpong, 2020. "Infant Mortality in Low- and Middle-income Countries: Does Government Health Spending Matter?," Journal of Development Policy and Practice, , vol. 5(1), pages 54-73, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:cdi:wpaper:998. 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: Vincent Mazenod (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceauvfr.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.