Working Paper: NBER ID: w15137
Authors: David E. Bloom; David Canning; Gnther Fink
Abstract: In a recent paper, Acemoglu and Johnson (2007) argue that the large increases in population health witnessed in the 20th century may have lowered income levels. We argue that this result depends crucially on their assumption that initial health and income do not affect subsequent economic growth. Using their data we reject this assumption in favor of a model of conditional convergence, with income adjusting to its steady state over time. We show that, allowing for conditional convergence, exogenous improvements in health due to technical advances associated with the epidemiological transition appear to have increased income levels.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: I10; J11; O40
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| initial health conditions (I12) | economic growth (O49) |
| improvements in life expectancy (I14) | income growth per capita (O49) |
| health improvements (I14) | economic growth (O49) |
| initial health conditions (I12) | negative correlation between health improvements and income growth (I14) |