The Rise of Life Expectancy and Economic Growth in the 20th Century

Casper Hansen and Lars Lønstrup

No 16/2013, Discussion Papers on Economics from University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics

Abstract: This study documents that the growth in life expectancy over the 20th century decreased per capita GDP growth and increased population growth. By exploiting significant advances in medical technologies, starting to diffuse in the 1940s, the analysis establishes that countries with higher levels of infectious-disease mortality prior to the medical breakthrough experienced higher growth rates in life expectancy and population size, and lower growth rates in per capita GDP in the time after the medical breakthroughs. These findings are robust to the inclusion of initial life expectancy and initial GDP per capita. The evidence presented here therefore complements the conclusions inferred in the research by Acemoglu and Johnson (2007).

Keywords: Life expectancy; health shock; long-run economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J11 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2013-10-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-fdg and nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Rise in Life Expectancy and Economic Growth in the 20th Century (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:sdueko:2013_016

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