Health, Labour Productivity and Growth

Under the standard neo-classical growth framework, conditional convergence studies assume that a country with a higher initial human capital among others ''performs'' better. Nevertheless the growth implications of health, another component of human capital, compared to education, have not been investigated thoroughly within the optimum growth framework yet. The aim of this study is to show rigorously the positive association between per capita income and health status of an economy and thereby provide a theoretical background for using ''health'' variables in conditional convergence analyses. This positive relationship between health and per capita output is first shown in the standard neo-classical growth framework where the health status is exogenously given. Endogenising health then enables us to analyse the impact of optimal expenditure on health care on steady state growth and transition dynamics.