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

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hansen, Casper Worm; Lonstrup, Lars
• 署名单位: University of Copenhagen; University of Southern Denmark
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12261
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 838-852
• 关键词: disease; HEALTH; eradication; population; death

摘要

This research exploits conditional exogenous variation in mortality from the diffusion of modern medicine to study the effect of growth in life expectancy on the growth in GDP per capita. The empirical analysis establishes that countries that obtained higher growth rates of life expectancy due to this shock to mortality in the mid-twentieth century experienced lower growth rates of GDP per capita in the second half of the twentieth century. In addition, a negative relationship between initial level of life expectancy and the subsequent growth rate of GDP per capita is found.