Health, human productivity, and long-term economic growth

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Arora, S
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 699-749
• 关键词: nutritional-status; birth-weight; childhood; fetal; hypertension; population; infection; mortality; disease; death

摘要

This article investigates the influence of health on the growth paths often industrialized countries over the course of 100 to 125 years. Changes in health increased their pace of growth by 30 to 40 percent, altering permanently the slope of their growth paths. This finding is robust across five measures of long-term health and it remains largely unchanged when controlled for investment in physical capital. Health-related variables correlate positively with years of schooling. However, schooling variables by themselves do not replicate the results obtained from health-related measures. Health improvements thus do not merely follow economic progress.