Mostly summarized from Gregory Mankiw’s Principles of Economics, 5th Ed.
PART 9 The Real Economy in the Long Run
Chapter 25 of 36 Production and Growth
Section 15 of 23
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1· saving and investment
2· investment from abroad
3· education
4· health and nutrition
5· property rights and political stability
6· free trade
7· research and development
8· population growth
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4· health and nutrition
Another way to increase human capital is expenditures that help improve population health.
Healthier workers are more productive thereby raising the nation’s living standards.
Economic historian Robert Fogel has estimated in Great Britain in 1780 about 20% of the population were so malnourished they could not do manual labor.
Among those who could work malnutrition substantially reduced the amount of labor they could do.
As nutrition improved so did workers' ability to work and productivity.
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Part of Fogel’s studies is considering the population’s height.
Short stature can indicate malnutrition, especially during gestation and infancy.
He has found as nations economically develop people eat more and the population becomes taller.
From 1775 to 1975 in Great Britain the average caloric consumption rose by 26 percent and the average man’s height rose by 3.6 inches.
During South Korea’s great economic growth in from 1962 to 1995 the average caloric consumption rose by 44 percent and the average man’s height rose by 2 inches.
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A person's height is determined by a combination of genetics and environment.
Because a population’s genetic makeup changes slowly relatively sudden increases in average height most likely are due to changes in the environment,
nutrition being the likely explanation.
Studies have also found height is a productivity indicator.
Researchers have determined taller workers tend to earn more because wages reflect productivity of a worker, this finding suggests taller workers are more productive on average.
The effect of height on wages is more pronounced in poorer countries, where malnutrition is more significant.
In a lecture Fogel gave after he won the economics Nobel Prize in 1993 he surveyed the evidence on health and economic growth and concluded "improved gross nutrition accounts for roughly 30 percent of the growth of per capita income in Britain between 1790 and 1980."
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For people in developing nations poor health and inadequate nutrition remain impediments to higher productivity and improved living standards.
The United Nations has estimated in sub-Saharan Africa about a third of the population is malnourished.
Poor countries can become trapped in a vicious cycle.
They are poor in part because their populations are malnourished and not healthy.
Their populations are not healthy in part because they are poor and cannot afford proper nutrition and healthcare.
But this creates the possibility of a virtuous circle.
Policies that lead to rapid economic growth naturally would improve health outcomes which in turn promote more economic growth.
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poor countries can get trapped in a vicious cycle
mazushī kuni wa akujunkan ni torappu sa reru kanōsei
貧しい国は悪循環に 巻き込まれる可能性
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