IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v25y2016i10p1312-1325.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Did the Millennium Development Goals Change Trends in Child Mortality?

Author

Listed:
  • Declan French

Abstract

There has been little assessment of the role the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have had in progressing international development. There has been a 41% reduction in the under‐five mortality rate worldwide from 1990 to 2011 and an acceleration in the rate of reduction since 2000. This paper explores why this has occurred, and results for all developing countries indicate that it is not due to more healthcare or public health interventions but is driven by a coincidental burst of economic growth. Although the MDGs are considered to have played an important part in securing progress against poverty, hunger and disease, there is very little evidence to back this viewpoint up. A thorough analysis of the successes and failures of the MDGs is therefore necessary before embarking on a new round of global goals. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Declan French, 2016. "Did the Millennium Development Goals Change Trends in Child Mortality?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(10), pages 1312-1325, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:10:p:1312-1325
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3218
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3218
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.3218?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rajeev Dehejia & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2004. "Booms, Busts, and Babies' Health," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 1091-1130.
    2. Stephan Klasen & Simon Lange, 2011. "Getting Progress Right: Measuring Progress Towards the MDGs Against Historical Trends," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 87, Courant Research Centre PEG, revised 20 Feb 2012.
    3. Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko & Greenstein, Joshua & Stewart, David, 2013. "How Should MDG Success and Failure be Judged: Faster Progress or Achieving the Targets?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 19-30.
    4. repec:pri:cheawb:adriana_booms.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Ettner, Susan L., 1996. "New evidence on the relationship between income and health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 67-85, February.
    6. Christina Paxson & Norbert Schady, 2005. "Child Health and Economic Crisis in Peru," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 19(2), pages 203-223.
    7. World Bank & International Monetary Fund, 2013. "Global Monitoring Report 2013 : Rural-Urban Dynamics and the Millennium Development Goals," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13330.
    8. Rodrik, Dani, 2011. "The Future of Convergence," Scholarly Articles 5131504, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    9. David Cutler & Angus Deaton & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "The Determinants of Mortality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 97-120, Summer.
    10. Lant Pritchett & Lawrence H. Summers, 1996. "Wealthier is Healthier," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(4), pages 841-868.
    11. Farahani, Mansour & Subramanian, S.V. & Canning, David, 2009. "The effect of changes in health sector resources on infant mortality in the short-run and the long-run: A longitudinal econometric analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 1918-1925, June.
    12. Sarah Baird & Jed Friedman & Norbert Schady, 2011. "Aggregate Income Shocks and Infant Mortality in the Developing World," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 847-856, August.
    13. Channing Arndt & Sam Jones & Finn Tarp, 2011. "Aid Effectiveness: Opening the Black Box," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-044, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. repec:pri:cheawb:adriana_booms is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Bhalotra, Sonia, 2010. "Fatal fluctuations? Cyclicality in infant mortality in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 7-19, September.
    16. Office of Health Economics, 2007. "The Economics of Health Care," For School 001490, Office of Health Economics.
    17. Dani Rodrik, 2011. "The future of economic convergence," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 13-52.
    18. Jorge Saba Arbache & John Page, 2010. "How Fragile Is Africa's Recent Growth?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 19(1), pages 1-24, January.
    19. Charles Kenny, Andy Sumner, 2011. "More Money or More Development: What Have the MDGs Achieved- Working Paper 278," Working Papers 278, Center for Global Development.
    20. Sudhir Anand & Martin Ravallion, 1993. "Human Development in Poor Countries: On the Role of Private Incomes and Public Services," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 133-150, Winter.
    21. World Bank, 2013. "World Development Indicators 2013," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13191.
    22. Channing Arndt & Sam Jones & Finn Tarp, 2011. "Aid Effectiveness: Opening the Black Box," WIDER Working Paper Series 044, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sundar Ponnusamy, 2022. "Natural disasters and missing children," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 399-416, February.
    2. Madisen Fuller & Puneet Dwivedi, 2019. "Assessing Changes in Inequality for Millennium Development Goals among Countries: Lessons for the Sustainable Development Goals," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-13, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bhalotra, Sonia, 2010. "Fatal fluctuations? Cyclicality in infant mortality in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 7-19, September.
    2. Ali, Amjad & Bibi, Chan, 2016. "Determinants of Social Progress and its Scenarios under the role of Macroeconomic Instability: Empirics from Pakistan," MPRA Paper 72920, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Owen O'Donnell & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Tom Van Ourti, 2013. "Health and Inequality," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-170/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Katrina Kosec & Jie Song, 2021. "The effects of income fluctuations on undernutrition and overnutrition across the lifecycle," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(10), pages 2487-2509, September.
    5. Kammerlander, Andreas & Schulze, Günther G., 2023. "Local economic growth and infant mortality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    6. Pérez-Moreno, Salvador & Blanco-Arana, María C. & Bárcena-Martín, Elena, 2016. "Economic cycles and child mortality: A cross-national study of the least developed countries," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 14-23.
    7. Elisa M. Maffioli, 2023. "The local health impacts of natural resource booms," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(2), pages 462-500, February.
    8. Jed Friedman & Norbert Schady, 2013. "How Many Infants Likely Died In Africa As A Result Of The 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(5), pages 611-622, May.
    9. Khvan, Margarita & Smorodenkova, Elizaveta & Yakovlev, Evgeny, 2020. "Economic Crises and Mortality Among the Elderly: Evidence from Two Russian Crises," IZA Discussion Papers 13540, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Lin Ma & Gil Shapira & Damien de Walque & Quy‐Toan Do & Jed Friedman & Andrei A. Levchenko, 2022. "The Intergenerational Mortality Trade‐Off Of Covid‐19 Lockdown Policies," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1427-1468, August.
    11. Cruces, Guillermo & Glüzmann, Pablo & Calva, Luis Felipe López, 2012. "Economic Crises, Maternal and Infant Mortality, Low Birth Weight and Enrollment Rates: Evidence from Argentina’s Downturns," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 303-314.
    12. Asali , Muhammad, 2015. "Recessions are not good for your health: the counter-cyclical health outcomes revisited," European Economic Letters, European Economics Letters Group, vol. 4(1), pages 11-14.
    13. Aparajita Dasgupta & Anahita Karandikar & Devvrat Raghav, 2024. "Road Access, Fertility, and Child Health in Rural India," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 50(1), pages 117-147, March.
    14. von der Goltz, Jan & Dar, Aaditya & Fishman, Ram & Mueller, Nathaniel D. & Barnwal, Prabhat & McCord, Gordon C., 2020. "Health Impacts of the Green Revolution: Evidence from 600,000 births across the Developing World," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    15. Bharadwaj, Prashant & Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata & Mirza, Rinchan Ali, 2020. "The Green revolution and infant mortality in India," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    16. Sonia Bhalotra, 2007. "Spending to save? State health expenditure and infant mortality in India," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(9), pages 911-928, September.
    17. Schady, Norbert & Smitz, Marc-Francois, 2010. "Aggregate economic shocks and infant mortality: New evidence for middle-income countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 145-148, August.
    18. van den Berg, Gerard J. & Paul, Alexander & Reinhold, Steffen, 2020. "Economic conditions and the health of newborns: Evidence from comprehensive register data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    19. Friedman, Jed & Schady, Norbert, 2009. "How many more infants are likely to die in Africa as a result of the global financial crisis ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5023, The World Bank.
    20. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Schady, Norbert, 2008. "Aggregate economic shocks, child schooling and child health," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4701, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:10:p:1312-1325. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.