This paper studies the impact of the first effective medical treatment for an infectious disease -diphtheria antitoxin- on the historical health transition in the United States. Using an instrumental variable for local antitoxin adoption rates and information from approximately 1.6 million death...

This paper studies the impact of the first effective medical treatment for an infectious disease -diphtheria antitoxin- on the historical health transition in the United States. Using an instrumental variable for local antitoxin adoption rates and information from approximately 1.6 million death...

Exploiting preintervention variation in mortality from various infectious diseases, together with the time variation arising from medical breakthroughs in the late 1940s and the 1950s, this study examines how a large positive shock to life expectancy influenced the formation of human capital...

Based on a world sample of countries, this paper presents panel data evidence that documents a U-shaped relation between GDP per capita (wealth) and life expectancy (health). The evidence also shows that excluding the possibility of a nonmonotonic relationship induces erroneous conclusions about...

The influence of life expectancy on schooling is usually thought of as one main mechanism by which life expectancy possibly affects income per capita and thus economic development. However, the relevance of this channel has been qualified in recent research. This paper studies whether life...

This study documents that the growth in life expectancy over the 20th century decreased per capita GDP growth and increased population growth. By exploiting significant advances in medical technologies, starting to diffuse in the 1940s, the analysis establishes that countries with higher levels...