The controversy over the link between health and growth has spawned a broad range of research. The new volume “Health and Growth” that I edited with Michael Spence lays out some of the methodological, analytic and policy issues surrounding this debate. This blog is meant to enhance that effort to enrich and deepen the analysis and understanding of the topic. And I hope that it will kindle yet more controversy as that further stimulates research and debate. The three issues that appear to especially merit additional debate and discussion are: (1) the methodological issues and the findings on the macroeconomic side; (2) the link across early childhood development, health status and growth; and, (3) the institutional issues that underlie the relationship between (public) health spending and both performance in health care delivery and the impacts on health status.
On the first issue, David Weil has posted a new paper on “Endemic Diseases and African Economic Growth”and David Canning and David Bloom plan to post a summary of a paper that responds to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson’s conclusion that “there is no evidence that the increase in life expectancy led to faster growth of income per capita or output per worker”. The evidence for developed and developing countries on returns to early childhood investments and the long term effects on health and economic status greatly impressed the commissioners who attended the workshop in October 2007. Those factors may help to explain some of the reasons why increased survival doesn’t lead to faster growth or worker productivity. Fragile institutions may also contribute. Despite the existence of effective preventive measures and medical technologies, weak public information and delivery systems limit dissemination of their benefits.
