The Effect of Female and Male Health on Economic Growth: Cross-Country Evidence within a Production Function Framework

Gazi Hassan (), Arusha Cooray and Mark Holmes ()

Working Papers in Economics from University of Waikato

Abstract: Adopting a production function based approach, we model the role of health as a regular factor of production on economic growth, and use disaggregate measures of male and female health capital using principal components analysis. Allowing for the dynamics of TFP to be embedded in the production function, we estimate it both in levels and in growth rates to distinguish between long- and short-run effects. We use appropriate panel cointegration methodology to control for endogeneity, cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity. Our main finding is that while male and female health capital stock has a significantly positive effect on level of output in the long-run, changes in gender disaggregated health capital has a negative or insignificant effect on output growth in the short-run.

Keywords: health and economic development; economic growth; endogeneity; panel data; TFP convergence; economics of gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F15 J16 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2015-04-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-gro, nep-hea and nep-sea
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https://repec.its.waikato.ac.nz/wai/econwp/1503.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The effect of female and male health on economic growth: cross-country evidence within a production function framework (2017)
Working Paper: The effect of female and male health on economic growth: cross-country evidence within a production function framework (2012)
Working Paper: The effect of female and male health on economic growth: cross-country evidence within a production function framework (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wai:econwp:15/03

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