rodrigo r. soares university of maryland, catholic university of rio de janeiro, nber and iza
DESCRIPTION
Comment on Robert Fogel’s “Health, Human Capital & Economic Growth” IADB Workshop on Health, Human Development Potential and the Quality of Life – April 26 2006 – Washington DC. Rodrigo R. Soares University of Maryland, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, NBER and IZA. Main Points. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Comment on Robert Fogel’s Comment on Robert Fogel’s “Health, Human Capital & “Health, Human Capital & Economic Growth”Economic Growth”
IADB Workshop on Health, Human Development Potential and IADB Workshop on Health, Human Development Potential and the Quality of Life – April 26 2006 – Washington DCthe Quality of Life – April 26 2006 – Washington DC
Rodrigo R. SoaresRodrigo R. SoaresUniversity of Maryland, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, NBER and IZAUniversity of Maryland, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, NBER and IZA
Main Points• Nutrition as a source of growth.
• Physiological and technological changes interacting to generate a transformation of the human species technophysio evolution.
• Physical differences across people in different areas of the world seem to reflect much more socioeconomic conditions than genetics/race.
• This process would explain 30% of the growth in income per capita in the UK over the last 200 years.
Implications• 1/3 of most of the growth experienced by the UK
would have been determined from changes in nutrition and its consequences 300%.
UK from Maddison
Year A.D. GDP pc Growth
0 632
1500 714 13%
1820 1,707 139%
1998 18,714 996%
Note: Year 0 for all Western Europe.
Some Points
• Several important changes were taking place at the same time.
• How much of the change in nutrition was endogenous to this broader process and how much was a driving force?
• Initial improvements in nutrition and population expansion without a countervailing Malthusian mechanism: some technological change necessary.
Life Expectancy at Birth and Fertility, England, 1541-1871
y = 0.0673x + 2.1979
R2 = 0.2227
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
5.5
6
6.5
15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65
Life Exp
Fe
rtili
ty
Life Expectancy at Birth and Fertility, England, 1541-1921
y = -0.0372x + 6.0362
R2 = 0.0858
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
5.5
6
6.5
15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65
Life Exp
Fe
rtili
ty
Some Other Points• Has this mechanism become less important over the 20th
century?– Factors associated with nutrition explain 90% of decline in
French mortality between 1785 and 1870, but only 50% during the past century.
• Changes in health have become increasingly dissociate from income and nutrition, but have remained intimately linked to the behavior of other demographic variables.
• How important is this mechanism nowadays to explain the experience of countries that have already gone through the demographic transition?
Figure 1: The Changing Relationship between Income and Life Expectancy; 1960, 1990, and 2000
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000
Income per capita (1996 int. prices)
Life
Exp
1960 1990 2000 Log. (1960) Log. (1990) Log. (2000)
Figure 5: The Relantionship between Income and Nutrition; 1960, 1990, and 2000
1500
1700
1900
2100
2300
2500
2700
2900
3100
3300
3500
-1000 1000 3000 5000 7000 9000 11000 13000Income per capita (1996 int. prices)
daily
kca
l per
cap
ita
1960 1990 2000 Log. (1960) Log. (1990) Log. (2000)
`
Figure 6: The Relantionship between Nutrition and Life Expectancy; 1960, 1990, and 2000
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
1500 1700 1900 2100 2300 2500 2700 2900 3100 3300 3500daily kcal per capita
Life
Exp
1960 1990 2000 Linear (1960) Linear (1990) Linear (2000)
Figure: Relationship Between Life Expectancy at Birth and Fertility Rate - Post-Demographic Transition Countries (1960-95)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
50 55 60 65 70 75 80
life expectancy at birth
tota
l fer
tility
rat
e
1960 1995 Poly. (1960) Poly. (1995) Poly.(all)
Figure: Relationship Between Life Expectancy at Birth and Educational Attainment - Post-Demographic Transition Countries (1960-95)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
50 55 60 65 70 75 80
life expectancy at birth
avg
scho
olin
g po
p ag
ed 1
5 an
d ab
ove
1960 1995 Expon. (1960) Expon. (1995)
Open Questions• In the developed world: what do obesity
trends mean from this perspective?
• In developing countries: have the reductions in mortality been too fast to be explained by technophysio evolution?