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Survival Convergence: Specification Matters

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  • Christopher GRIGORIOU

    (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le Développement International(CERDI))

Abstract

Retaining as a “Millennium Development Goal” a decrease by two thirds in child mortality whatever its initial level assumes that the target elasticity of child mortality may be the same in all the developing countries. We show that such an assumption is not perfectly consistent with the bounded characteristic of the child mortality indicator. We propose to use the logit transformation of such bounded human development indicators to have appropriate estimates of human convergence: this provides the best specification of the overall change in child survival among countries. Applied to child survival on a cross-section basis for 166 countries and over a thirty-year period (1970-99), this measure shows no evidence of absolute convergence but on the contrary a highly significant divergence.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher GRIGORIOU, 2008. "Survival Convergence: Specification Matters," Working Papers 200815, CERDI.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdi:wpaper:998
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    References listed on IDEAS

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