| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
A frequent empirical approach toward examining the impact of health on economic growth has been to focus on data for a cross-section of countries and to regress the income indicator on the health indicator controlling for the initial level of income and for other factors believed to influence steady-state income levels. From the methodological perspective, such a growth regression approach has mainly offered evidence for the relationship between health and income, using cross-country macro-level data. This article contributes to existing empirical research by introducing within-country regional-level analysis using three rounds of the Demographic and Health Surveys of Bangladesh, combined with corresponding geo-referenced global positioning system (GPS) data, to estimate the contribution of life expectancy to economic well-being. The joint evolution of the regional-level longevity and wealth indicator obtained from the micro-data corroborates Preston's cross-country macro-level findings. Also, the finding that a 1 per cent increase in life expectancy leads to about 3 per cent increase in the wealth index corroborates the findings of several macro-regression studies and promotes the concept of direct investments in health.
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