The Evolution of the Conditional Joint Distribution of Life Expectancy and Per Capita Income Growth

In this paper we investigate the joint conditional distribution of health (life expectancy) and income growth and its evolution over time. The conditional distributions of these two variables are obtained by applying nonparametric methods to a bivariate nonparametric regression system of equations. Analyzing the distributions of the nonparametric fitted values from these models we find strong evidence of movement over time and strong evidence of first-order stochastic dominance of the earlier years over the later ones. We also find strong evidence of second-order stochastic dominance by non-OECD countries over OECD countries in each period. Our results complement the findings of Wu, Savvides and Stengos (2008) who explored the unconditional behaviour of these joint distributions over time