世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

We exploit the major international health improvements from the 1940s to estimate the effect of life expectancy on economic performance. We construct predicted mortality using preintervention mortality rates from various diseases and dates of global interventions. Predicted mortality has a large impact on changes in life expectancy starting in 1940 but no effect before 1940. Using predicted mortality as an instrument, we find that a 1 percent increase in life expectancy leads to a 1.7‐2 percent increase in population. Life expectancy has a much smaller effect on total GDP, however. Consequently, there is no evidence that the large increase in life expectancy raised income per capita.

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Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth

I use microeconomic estimates of the effect of health on individual outcomes to construct macroeconomic estimates of the proximate effect of health on GDP per capita. I employ a variety of methods to construct estimates of the return to health, which I combine with cross-country and historical data on height, adult survival rates, and age at menarche. Using my preferred estimate, eliminating health differences among countries would reduce the variance of log GDP per worker by 9.9 percent and reduce the ratio of GDP per worker at the 90th percentile to GDP per worker at the lOth percentile from 20.5 to 17.9. While this effect is economically significant, it is also substantially smaller than estimates of the effect of health on economic growth that are derived from cross-country regressions.

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Accounting for the Effect Of Health on Economic Growth

for their assistance on this paper, and are grateful for comments by Dr. Happy Kufigwa Siphambe. Special thanks goes to Peter Materu and William Saint for general guidance and specific comments and to seminar participants at the World Bank. This research was commissioned by the World Bank (AFTHD). The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed here are those of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank or of the governments they represent. For several decades, African countries and the donor institutions they work with have placed great emphasis on primary and, more recently, secondary education. But they have neglected tertiary education as an added means to improve economic growth and mitigate poverty. This paper challenges the long-held belief in the international development community that tertiary education has little role in promoting economic growth. It reviews evidence about the impact that tertiary education can have on economic growth and poverty reduction, with a focus on the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Enrollment rates for higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa are by far the lowest in the world. Currently, the gross enrollment ratio in the region stands at only 5 per cent. 2 Because of a longstanding belief that primary and secondary schooling are more important than tertiary education for economic development, the international development community has encouraged African governments' relative neglect of higher education. For example, from 1985 to 1989, 17 per cent of the World Bank's worldwide education-sector spending was on higher education. per cent. Higher education in Africa has suffered from such reductions in spending. Many African countries struggle to maintain even low enrollment levels, and the academic research output in the region is among the world's lowest. Recent evidence suggests, however, that higher education can produce both public and private benefits. The private benefits for individuals are well established, and include better employment prospects, higher salaries, and a greater ability to save and invest. These benefits may result in better health and improved quality of life. Public channels, though less well studied, also exist. One possible channel through which higher education can enhance economic development is through technological catch-up. In a knowledge economy, tertiary education can help economies gain ground on more technologically advanced societies, as graduates are likely to be more aware of and better able to use new technologies. Our analysis supports the idea that …

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Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa

This paper investigates the hypothesis that the causal effect of life expectancy on income per capita growth is non-monotonic. This hypothesis follows from the recent literature on unified growth, in which the demographic transition represents an important turning point for population dynamics and hence plays a central role for the transition from stagnation to growth. Results from different empirical specifications and identification strategies document that the effect is non-monotonic, negative (but often insignificant) before the onset of the demographic transition, but strongly positive after its onset. The results provide a new interpretation of the contradictory existing evidence and have relevant policy implications.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/35489/1/600383415.pdf

Life Expectancy and Economic Growth : The Role of the Demographic Transition

There are two prominent methods to assess the effects of health on economic growth The first is based on the estimated returns on health by means of Mincer wage regressions that are aggregated to derive the macroeconomic effects of population health The second approach is based on the estimation of a generalized aggregate production function that decomposes human capital into its different components, in particular, population health While the overwhelming majority of studies based on both methods indicates a positive effect of health on economic growth, the size of the effect is still subject to intensive debate We show that, after appropriately controlling for potential spillover effects of population health at the aggregate level, the point estimate of the macroeconomic effect of health is remarkably close to the one found by aggregating the microeconomic effects Specifically, an increase in the adult survival rate of 10 percentage points is associated with a 91 percent increase in labor productivity This effect is sizable and adds a strong argument for investments in population health over and above the direct welfare benefits of good health

Health and Economic Growth: Reconciling the Micro and Macro Evidence

Micro-based and macro-based approaches have been used to assess the effects of health on economic growth. Micro-based approaches aggregate the return on individual health from Mincerian wage regressions to derive the macroeconomic effects of population health. Macro-based approaches estimate a generalized aggregate production function that decomposes output into its components. The microbased approach tends to find smaller effects than the macro-based approach, thus presenting a micromacro puzzle regarding the economic return on health. We reconcile these two strands of literature by showing that the point estimate of the macroeconomic effect of health is quantitatively close to that found by aggregating the microeconomic effects, controlling for potential spillovers of population health at the aggregate level. Our results justify using the micro-based approach to estimate the direct economic benefits of health interventions.

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The gender gap in mortality: How much is explained by behavior?

Unhealthy people adapt to their poor state of health and are usually happier than expected by healthy people. In this paper, we investigate how adapting to a deteriorating state of health affects health spending, life expectancy, and the value of life. We set up a life-cycle model in which individuals are subject to physiological aging, calibrate it with data from gerontology, and compare behavior and outcomes of adapting and non-adapting individuals. While adaptation generally increases lifetime utility (by about 2 percent), its impact on health behavior and longevity depends crucially on whether individuals are aware of their adaptive behavior, i.e. whether they adapt in a naive or sophisticated way. We also compute the QALY change implied by health shocks and discuss whether and how adaptation influences results and the desirability of positive health innovations.

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Going from bad to worse: Adaptation to poor health health spending, longevity, and the value of life

Aging humans adapt to their worsening state of health and old people are usually happier than estimated by young individuals. In this paper we investigate how adaptation to a deteriorating state of health affects health spending, life expectancy, and the value of life. We set up a a life cycle model in which individuals are subject to physiological aging, calibrate it with data from gerontology, and compare behavior and outcomes of adapting and non-adapting individuals. While adaptation generally increases the value of life (by about 2 to 5 percent), its impact on health behavior and longevity depends crucially on whether individuals are aware of their adaptive behavior.

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Johannes Schünemann

Papers

Health and Economic Growth: Reconciling the Micro and Macro Evidence

Health and Economic Growth: Reconciling the Micro and Macro Evidence

The gender gap in mortality: How much is explained by behavior?

Going from bad to worse: Adaptation to poor health health spending, longevity, and the value of life

Going from Bad to Worse: Adaptation to Poor Health, Health Spending, Longevity, and the Value of Life