Disease and Development Revisited / David E. Bloom, David Canning, Günther Fink.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bloom, David E.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Canning, David.

Fink, Günther.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w15137.

NBER working paper series no. w15137

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

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.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2009.