The world has enjoyed huge improvements in population health during the last half century. But major health problems … deal with noncommunicable diseases. Several classic arguments for public spending on health have buttressed governments …’ efforts to improve health. These efforts have now been further spurred by new economic arguments that better population health …

Acemoglu and Johnson (2007) present evidence that improvements in population health do not promote economic growth. We … show that their result depends critically on the assumption that initial health has no causal effect on subsequent economic … growth. We argue that such an effect is likely, primarily because childhood health affects adult productivity. In our …