 There's more to life than money: Exploring the levels|growth paradox in income and healthJournal of International Development, 2009, vol. 21, issue 1, 24-41 Abstract: This paper discusses historical and recent cross-country evidence relating income to measures of health. After a review of the literature on income and the quality of life, the paper looks at long-term historical evidence on the link between income change and health indicators. Using data on life expectancy, infant mortality and income for a small subset of largely wealthy countries over the 1913-1999 period, the paper examines correlations between income and health at period start and end as well as using the growth of the variables. Using a larger set of data over the period 1975-2000, the paper repeats these tests, as well as looking for any evidence of a larger impact of income, when different data are used or the sample is split. Results suggest a strong cross-country link between income and health and considerable evidence of global improvements over time, but a comparatively weak relationship between improvements in income and improvements in health, even over the very long term. The paper discusses a model based on technology and institutions that might account for such results as well as some preliminary evidence in favour of such a model. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Date: 2009 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:21:y:2009:i:1:p:24-41 DOI: 10.1002/jid.1499 Access Statistics for this article Journal of International Development is currently edited by Paul Mosley and Hazel Johnson More articles in Journal of International Development from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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