Macroeconomic Dynamics of Health : Lags and Variability in Mortality, Employment and Spending

ABSTRACT/SYNOPSIS. Medicine is technologically dynamic but fiscally inertial. Major change in the health sector takes time. Responses to macroeconomic shocks are subject to lags of varying lengths, from several years to many decades. There may also be feedback and reverse causality, as when better health leads to higher incomes, and vice-versa. These lags and interactions complicate measurement so that the strong linkages between human health and the economy are sometimes obscured and difficult to estimate with precision