The Democracy Dividend: How Early Exposure to Democracy Shapes Health Outcomes

Federico Maggio, Dominic Rohner and Alessandro Saia

No 19329, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The variation in life-expectancy and health outcomes across countries and cohorts is striking. While medical progress and climatic factors have received much attention, there is only relatively little we know about the health impact of exposure to institutional environments over the life cycle. The present study investigates how exogenous variation in cumulative childhood exposure to democracy shapes adult health outcomes. It is found that growing up in bad regimes lastingly damages lifetime health, even when living as adult in a more favorable institutional environment. The key channels of transmission include income effects, and a series of policy recommendations are formulated.

Keywords: Democracy; Health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 N92 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-08
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19329 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19329

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19329

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().