New evidence of the health status and economic growth relationship

Abstract

Over the last two decades, the role of health as a determinant of growth has been gaining ground in economic analysis due to longer average life expectancy at birth or lower infant mortality experienced in developing and fast-growing emerging economies. The empirical approach to this problem, based primarily on econometric analysis, has focused on two alternative approaches; the growth accounting models and the “a la Barro” regressions. This study aims to measure the contribution of health to economic growth using a panel of 91 countries over the period 1960-2005, and to compare the estimated impact of better health status on long-run per capita income under those two approaches, controlling for potential endogeneity. Our main results show the marginal effect of the change in health status in the long-term income lies between 2.6% in the growth accounting models and 8.3% in the “a la Barro” regressions. These results are consistent with the marginal effects we simulate and quantify using the health-growth point estimates found in earlier literature.