A Closer Look at the Relationship Between Life Expectancy and Economic Growth

Théophile Azomahou (), Raouf Boucekkine () and Bity Diene ()
Additional contact information
Théophile Azomahou: UNU-MERIT
Bity Diene: BETA, Universite Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg

No 2008-027, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: We first provide a nonparametric inference of the relationship between life expectancy and economic growth on an historical data for 18 countries over the period 1820-2005. The obtained shape shows up convexity for low enough values of life expectancy and concavity for large enough values. We then study this relationship on a benchmark model combining perpetual youth" and learning-by-investing. In such a benchmark, the generated relationship between life expectancy and economic growth is shown to be strictly increasing and concave. We finally examine two models departing from perpetual youth" by assuming successively age-dependent earnings and age-dependent survival probabilities. With age-dependent earnings, the obtained relationship is hump-shaped while agedependent survival laws do reproduce the convex-concave shape detected in the prior empirical study.

Keywords: Life expectancy; economic growth; perpetual youth; age-dependent mortality; nonparametric estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J10 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: A closer look at the relationship between life expectancy and economic growth (2009)
Working Paper: A closer look at the relationship between life expectancy and economic growth (2009)
Working Paper: A closer look at the relationship between life expectancy and economic growth (2007)
Working Paper: A closer look at the relationship between life expectancy and economic growth (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2008027

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