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Health, Income, and the Preston Curve: A Long View

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  • Leandro Prados de la Escosura

    (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

Abstract

Well-being is increasingly viewed as a multidimensional phenomenon, of which income is only one facet. In this paper I focus on another one, health, and look at its synthetic measure, life expectancy at birth, and its relationship with per capita income. International trends of life expectancy and per capita GDP differed during the past 150 years. Life expectancy gains depended on economic growth but also on the advancement in medical knowledge. The pace and breadth of the health transitions drove life expectancy aggregate tendencies and distribution. The new results confirm the relationship between life expectancy and per capita income and its outward shift over time as put forward by Samuel Preston. However, the association between non-linearly transformed life expectancy and the log of per capita income does not flatten out over time, but becomes convex suggesting more than proportional increases in life expectancy at higher per capita income levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2022. "Health, Income, and the Preston Curve: A Long View," Working Papers 0224, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    • Handle: RePEc:hes:wpaper:0224
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    2. Hai, Xia & Wang, Qiang, 2024. "Does capital bring health? Evidence from family capital and older people," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PB).
    3. Thibault, Emmanuel & Ponthieres, Grégory, 2023. "Life Expectancy, Income and Long-Term Care: The Preston Curve Reexamined," TSE Working Papers 23-1474, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Well-being; Life Expectancy; Per Capita Income; Inequality; Health Transition; Preston Curve;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F60 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - General
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O50 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - General

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