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Health, income, and the Preston Curve: a long view

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  • Prados de la Escosura, Leandro

Abstract

Well-being is increasingly viewed as a multidimensional phenomenon, of which income is only one facet. In this paper I focus on another one, health, and look at its synthetic measure, life expectancy at birth, and its relationship with per capita income. International trends of life expectancy and per capita GDP differed during the past 150 years. Life expectancy gains depended on economic growth but also on the advancement in medical knowledge. The pace and breadth of the health transitions drove life expectancy aggregate tendencies and distribution. The new results confirm the relationship between life expectancy and per capita income and its outward shift over time as put forward by Samuel Preston. However, the association between nonlinearlytransformed life expectancy and the log of per capita income does not flattenout over time, but becomes convex suggesting more than proportional increases in life expectancy at higher per capita income levels.

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  • Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, 2022. "Health, income, and the Preston Curve: a long view," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 34493, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    • Handle: RePEc:cte:whrepe:34493
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    Keywords

    Well-Being;

    JEL classification:

    • F60 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - General
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O50 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - General

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