Arbeitspapier

Productive Benefits of Health: Evidence from Low-Income Countries

Various household survey indicators of adult nutrition and health status are analyzed as determinants of individual wages. However, survey indicators of health status may be heterogeneous, or a combination of health human capital formed by investment behavior and variation due to genotype, random shocks, and measurement error, which are uncontrolled by behavior. Although there are no definitive methods for distinguishing between human capital and genetic variation in health outcomes, alternative mappings of health status, such as height, on community health services, parent socioeconomic characteristics, and ethnic categories may be suggestive. Instrumental variable estimates of health human capital and residual sources of variation in measured health status are included in wage functions to assess empirically whether the productivity of both components of health are equal. Evidence from Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire and Brazil suggests that the health human capital effect on wages is substantially larger than that associated with residual health variation.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: Center Discussion Paper ; No. 903

Classification
Wirtschaft
Health Behavior
Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
Subject
Health Human Capital
Wage Productivity
Brazil
Ghana
Cote D'Ivoire
Gesundheit
Ernährung
Humankapital
Produktivität
Brasilien
Ghana
Elfenbeinküste

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Schultz, T. Paul
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Yale University, Economic Growth Center
(where)
New Haven, CT
(when)
2005

Handle
Last update
20.09.2024, 8:24 AM CEST

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Schultz, T. Paul
  • Yale University, Economic Growth Center

Time of origin

  • 2005

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