The quantity and quality of life and the evolution of world inequality
The quantity and quality of life and the evolution of world inequality
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DOI：
10.1257/0002828053828563
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发表时间：
2005-03-01
影响因子：
10.7
通讯作者：
Soares, RR
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Becker, GS;Philipson, TJ;Soares, RR
人均国内生产总值通常用来代表生活在不同国家的个人的生活质量。然而，福利也受到寿命长短的影响。本文将寿命纳入跨国不平等演变的总体评估，并表明它在数量上是重要的。以前的工作记录表明，直到1990年代，各国之间的不平等没有减少，这与计入寿命增长后不平等的减少形成鲜明对比。在第二次世界大战后的整个时期，卫生有助于大大减少各国之间的福利不平等。本文推导出寿命超边际变化的估值公式，并计算出一个“全面”增长率，其中包括1960年至2000年期间96个国家在健康方面取得的进展。延长寿命改变了传统的结果;收入较低的国家往往比收入较高的国家增长更快。我们估计，1960年，最贫穷的50%国家的"全部收入"平均年增长率为4.1%，其中1.7个百分点来自健康，而最富有的50%国家的"全部收入"平均年增长率为2.6%，其中只有0.4个百分点来自健康。此外，我们还将预期寿命的变化分解为13大死亡原因组和3个年龄组的变化。我们发现，传染病，呼吸道和消化系统疾病，先天性，围产期和“不明确”的条件下，主要集中在20岁之前和20岁至50岁之间的死亡率，是负责减少预期寿命不平等的大部分。与此同时，艾滋病最近的影响，加上50岁以后的死亡率下降-由于神经系统、感觉器官、心脏和循环系统疾病-加剧了各国之间的健康不平等。
GDP per capita is usually used to proxy for the quality of life of individuals living in different countries. Welfare is also affected by quantity of life, however, as represented by longevity. This paper incorporates longevity into an overall assessment of the evolution of cross-country inequality and shows that it is quantitatively important. The absence of reduction in cross-country inequality up to the 1990s documented in previous work is in stark contrast to the reduction in inequality after incorporating gains in longevity. Throughout the post-World War II period, health contributed to reduce significantly welfare inequality across countries. This paper derives valuation formulas for infra-marginal changes in longevity and computes a ''full" growth rate that incorporates the gains in health experienced by 96 countries for the period between 1960 and 2000. Incorporating longevity gains changes traditional results; countries starting with lower income tended to grow faster than countries starting with higher income. We estimate an average yearly growth in "full income" of 4.1 percent for the poorest 50 percent of countries in 1960, of which 1.7 percentage points are due to health, as opposed to a growth of 2.6 percent for the richest 50 percent of countries, of which only 0.4 percentage points are due to health. Additionally, we decompose changes in life expectancy into changes attributable to 13 broad groups of causes of death and three age groups. We show that mortality from infectious, respiratory, and digestive diseases, congenital, perinatal, and "ill-defined" conditions, mostly concentrated before age 20 and between ages 20 and 50, is responsible for most of the reduction in life expectancy inequality. At the same time, the recent effect of AIDS, together with reductions in mortality after age 50-due to nervous system, senses organs, heart and circulatory diseases-contributed to increase health inequality across countries.