Neo-liberal economic practices and population health: a cross-national analysis,1980--2004

Abstract: Although there has been substantial debate and research concerning the economic impact of neo-liberal practices, there is a paucity of research about the potential relation between neo-liberal economic practices and population health. We assessed the extent to which neo-liberal policies and practices are associated with population health at the national level. We collected data on 119 countries between 1980 and 2004. We measured neo-liberalism using the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) Index, which gives an overall score as well as a score for each of five different aspects of neo-liberal economic practices: (1) size of government, (2) legal structure and security of property rights, (3) access to sound money, (4) freedom to exchange with foreigners and (5) regulation of credit, labor and business. Our measure of population health was under-five mortality. We controlled for potential mediators (income distribution, social capital and openness of political institutions) and confounders (female literacy, total population, rural population, fertility, gross domestic product per capit