Luis Currais

Economic growth and health: direct impact or reverse causation?

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of health status in productivity. In order to check the existence of reverse causation suggested by previous studies the Hausman test was carried out and different sets of instruments were used as exogenous determinants of health expenditure. Variables related to health expenditure were used to estimate the elasticity and these produced accepted results. Evidence was obtained to support the positive effect of health on economic growth.

Income Variation and Health Expenditure: Evidence for OECD Countries

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role health investment plays in human capital accumulation, and in so doing to demonstrate that education is not the only factor affecting the performance of the labor force and productivity. Estimates are made for the OECD countries for the period 1960-90. Investment in health contributes in a significant way to explaining variations in output through human capital, even in those countries which presumably have high levels of health. Copyright 1999 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

The effect of health investment on growth: A causality analysis

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of health investment on productivity as an important variable associated with human capital accumulation. The authors also study the possible existence of endogeneity by using instrumental variables estimation. The results that are obtained may be interpreted as evidence of the positive impact of health expenditure on income growth. Furthermore, the authors looked at the bounded gains of health status and divided the sample according to the median of total health expenditure and found that the countries with lower levels of health spending obtain larger benefits when the other determinants of growth are held constant.

HEALTH IMPROVEMENTS AND THE TRANSITION OUT OF MALTHUSIAN STAGNATION

The central component of most economic models that analyse the transition from the Malthusian regime to self-sustaining developed economies is education. Improved health is normally envisaged as simply a by-product of economic growth. Whereas growth does, indeed, tend to improve health status, the reverse is also true, namely that health improvements are a dynamic force capable of driving economic expansion. This paper underlines the importance of health improvements in escaping from Malthusian stagnation. Further, and in contrast to existing literature, which emphasizes the effects of changes in mortality rates, this paper focuses on the relationship between health status and the efficiency of human capital technology. Through this channel, health improvements stimulate investments in child quality in terms of both nourishing and schooling and drive the economy towards the Modern Growth regime.

Parental education, child’s grade repetition and the modifier effect of cannabis use

Previous research on the relationship among family socio-economic status (SES), cannabis use and educational attainment has concentrated on finding a causal pathway from SES and illicit drug use to educational achievement. However, the association between family background and a child’s cannabis use is weak. When analysing both family SES and education as determinants of a child’s educational attainment, cannabis use should be treated as an effect modifier rather than a confounder. This article examines how cannabis use alters the protective effect of better family education on a child’s school performance. By means of a retrospective cohort study using data from the Spanish National Survey on Drug Use in Secondary Education, this study illustrates that, as expected, children of better-educated parents are less likely to repeat a grade, although the positive impact of higher family education vanishes when students use cannabis.

Illicit drug use and labour market participation: evidence of simultaneity

Empirical research into the relationship between illicit drug use and labour market success has been found to have mixed results in the literature. The relevant sources of variability are the methods used to account for the potential endogeneity of drug use. This article utilizes clinical data for drug use and a recursive simultaneous equations approach as an alternative method for estimating the effect of consumption on labour participation and as a means for controlling for the endogeneity problem. Our results confirm that drug use is endogenously determined, and provide evidence to support the thesis that frequent use of dependency drugs greatly decreases the likelihood of being employed.

The social cost of illicit drugs use in Spain

BACKGROUND Illegal drugs consumption not only has a notable impact on the populations health, but also leads to major socio-economic costs. A significant characteristic of drug consumers is that the majority are of working age. The main aim of this study is to estimate the economic impact of drug consumption in Spain from a social perspective. METHODS A cost-of-illness methodology is carried out and a distinction is made between health-related and non-health related direct costs, as well as indirect costs. Among the direct health care costs included are hospitalisations, primary and emergency care, support programmes and HIV outpatient care. Expenditure on prevention, law enforcement and research was included as direct costs falling outside of health care. Productivity losses due to premature deaths attributed to substance abuse and patient hospitalisation formed part of indirect costs. RESULTS For 2012, the total social cost related to drug consumption in Spain was somewhere between 1,436 and 1,651 million euros. The minimum cost of this consumption represented 0.14% of Spains GDP for that year. CONCLUSION The present cost estimations provide a measure of the social burden that illegal drug consumption represents for the community. When it comes to allocating resources, the obtained results quantify the potential economic returns that could be achieved from effective policies and programmes aimed at reducing the consumption of illegal drugs.