PUBLIC health, HEALTH & economic development, MEDICAL care, INCOME, PER capita, INFANT mortality, DEATH rate
Abstract
This paper investigates the causal effect of improvements in health on economic development using a long panel of European countries. Identification is based on the particular timing of the introduction of public health care systems in different countries, which is the random outcome of a political process. We document that the introduction of public health care systems had a significant immediate effect on health dynamics proxied by infant mortality and crude death rates. The findings suggest that health improvements had a positive effect on growth in income per capita and aggregate income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]