Health, lifestyle, Growth

Coppola, Gianluigi (2008): Health, lifestyle, Growth.

Abstract

In this paper we try to explain why lifestyle may have a positive impact on economic growth. First of all, we consider health affecting consumer’s utility and we define also a Health Production Function where health is the output and the consumer’s good are the inputs. In this approach we define lifestyle as the return to scale of the Health Production Function A first result is that an increase of consumer’s personal income may have a positive or a negative effect on health. According this result, we modify the Solow Growth Model. We consider health as labour-augmenting. The result is a semi-endogenous model in which the population growth affects positively the income per capita growth, if lifestyle is positive.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I0 - General > I00 - General; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O40 - General

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