Death and Development

Peter Lorentzen, John McMillan and Romain Wacziarg

No 61, 2006 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: Analyzing a variety of cross-national and sub-national data sources, we show that high adult mortality reduces economic growth by shortening time horizons. Higher adult mortality is associated with increased levels of risky behavior, higher fertility and lower investment in physical and human capital. Furthermore, the feedback effect from economic prosperity to better healthcare implies that mortality could be the source of a poverty-trap. In our regressions, adult mortality explains almost all of Africa's growth tragedy over the past forty years. Our analysis also supports grim forecasts of the long-run economic costs of the ongoing AIDS epidemic.

Keywords: mortality; fertility; human capital; growth; investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev, nep-for and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Death and development (2008)
Working Paper: Death and Development (2005)
Working Paper: Death and Development (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:red:sed006:61

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