Disease and Development Revisited

David Bloom, David Canning and Günther Fink

No 7391, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Acemoglu and Johnson (2007) present evidence that improvements in population health do not promote economic growth. We show that their result depends critically on the assumption that initial health has no causal effect on subsequent economic growth. We argue that such an effect is likely, primarily because childhood health affects adult productivity. In our augmented model, which includes initial health, the instrumental variable proposed by Acemoglu and Johnson has no significant predictive power for improvements in health and does not identify the effect of contemporaneous improvements in health on economic growth.

Keywords: development; economic growth; health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2013-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published - pubished in: Journal of Political Economy, 2014, 122 (6), 1355-1366

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Related works:
Journal Article: Disease and Development Revisited (2014)
Working Paper: Disease and Development Revisited (2009)
Working Paper: Disease and Development Revisited (2009)
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