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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Why has under-5 mortality decreased at such different rates in different countries?
AU - Jamison, Dean T.
AU - Murphy, Shane
AU - Sandbu, Martin E.
PY - 2016/7/1
Y1 - 2016/7/1
N2 - Controlling for socioeconomic and geographic factors, under-5 mortality (5q0) in developing countries has been declining at about 2.7% per year, a high rate of ‘technical progress’. This paper adduces theoretical and empirical reasons for rejecting the usual specification of homogeneous technical progress across countries and uses a panel of 95 developing countries for the period 1970 to 2000 to explore the consequences of heterogeneity. Allowing country-specific rates of technical progress sharply reduces the estimated income elasticity of 5q0 and points to country variation in technical progress as the principal source of the (large) cross-country variation in 5q0 decline. Education levels and physician coverage also contribute and are less affected than income of allowing country variation in technical progress. The paper concludes by decomposing 1970–2000 5q0 decline into its different sources for each country.
AB - Controlling for socioeconomic and geographic factors, under-5 mortality (5q0) in developing countries has been declining at about 2.7% per year, a high rate of ‘technical progress’. This paper adduces theoretical and empirical reasons for rejecting the usual specification of homogeneous technical progress across countries and uses a panel of 95 developing countries for the period 1970 to 2000 to explore the consequences of heterogeneity. Allowing country-specific rates of technical progress sharply reduces the estimated income elasticity of 5q0 and points to country variation in technical progress as the principal source of the (large) cross-country variation in 5q0 decline. Education levels and physician coverage also contribute and are less affected than income of allowing country variation in technical progress. The paper concludes by decomposing 1970–2000 5q0 decline into its different sources for each country.
KW - Under-5 Mortality
KW - Technical Progress
KW - Hierarchical Model
KW - Varying Coefficients Model
U2 - 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2016.03.002
DO - 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2016.03.002
M3 - Journal article
VL - 48
SP - 16
EP - 25
JO - Journal of Health Economics
JF - Journal of Health Economics
SN - 0167-6296
ER -