In this article, we provide a comprehensive overview of the role that health plays in economic develop­ment. We study cross-country differences in income and health and examine the underused value-of-­life and life-year gain measures. In particular, we compare two value-of-life measures, one...

This study examines the effects of adult and non-adult mortality on the long-run level of income in a heterogeneous dynamic and cross-sectionally dependent panel. Employing data for 20 countries between 1800 and 2010, it is found that (i) while non-adult mortality has no long-run effect on GDP...

The Inca Empire was the last of a long series of highly developed cultures in pre-colonial South America. It stretched across parts of the current territories of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and the whole of Peru. The Inca Road was its 30,000-kilometer-long transportation system....

Exploiting cross-state variation in infectious causes of death, together with time variation arising from medical innovations toward the middle of the twentieth century, this study examines the consequences of a positive health shock within US states. It establishes that states with higher...

This paper studies the interplay between left-handedness and economic development. To explain the decline and subsequent recovery of left-handedness observed over the last few centuries in the Western world, we propose a theory in which economic development influences the prevalence of...

We modify the concept of the middle-income trap (MIT) against the background of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the (future) challenges of automation (creating the concept of the "MIT 2.0") and discuss the implications for developing Asia. In particular, we analyze the impacts of...