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 IADB Workshop on Health, Human Development Potential and the Quality of Life – April 26 2006 – Washington and the Quality of Life – April 26 2006 – Washington DC DC Rodrigo R. Soares Rodrigo R. Soares University of Maryland, Catholic University of Rio de University of Maryland, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, NBER and IZA Janeiro, NBER and IZA
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Rodrigo R. Soares University of Maryland, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, NBER and IZA
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 Presentation
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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