The Rise in Life Expectancy and Economic Growth in the 20th Century
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: 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.
Source: The Economic Journal
DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12261
Authors: Casper Worm Hansen, Lars Lønstrup
Institutions: University of Copenhagen, University of Southern Denmark
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3122777698