Economic Development and the Escape from High Mortality

SummaryThis paper studies the characteristic features of the escape from high mortality as recorded from the historical experience of Northwestern Europe and from the current experience of less developed countries. The paper documents stylized facts of mortality change and measures the contribution of economic development, represented by income per capita, to the mortality decline during the second half of the 20th century. The paper argues that improvements in economic conditions since the 18th century are an important factor behind the decline in death rates in developed countries and in the subsequent reduction of death rates in less developed countries. We show that economic development lowers mortality through differential effects in infectious disease mortality and that quantitatively, income growth is able to account for between one-third and one-half of the recent mortality decline.