Health status and learning capacity: effects on human capital accumulation and economic growth

[Abstract] The importance of health improvements for economic growth has been underlined by a growing number of theoretical and empirical papers. This thesis contributes to the literature by analysing a specific mechanism that underlies this relationship, namely the complementarity of child health and learning ability. Health status is a constitutive component of human capital and, in addition, has a significant multiplier effect on its accumulation. Favourable health status affects practically all of the abilities and skills that children are capable of developing positively. As a direct result, school-based human capital investment provides an optimal channel for enhancing economic growth. Conversely, poor physical health constitutes a major constraint, that only serves to exacerbate deprivation. The analysis carried out in this thesis is both empirical and theoretical. Most of the empirical exercises, which explore the relationship between health and education, have required the use of instrumental variable techniques in order to assess the question of endogeneity that arises when considering the two variables simultaneously. Theoretical models rely on the OLG framework, which allows for considering intergenerational linkages and the temporal evolution of the interest variables. Throughout this thesis it is shown that parents tend to be the agents that transmit child health status, i.e. it is parents that are responsible for the investment of child-health human capital. This dynamic is instrumental in dictating both child learning capacity and the level of schooling investments. These findings have been included in a theoretical 7 model in order to explain the possible emergence of multiple equilibria in the temporal evolution of human capital. In addition, the consequences of a particular policy aimed at improving the condition of the poor, namely balanced school meals as a means of ensuring basic alimentation, have been investigated by means of a numerical simulation. If poor health causes poverty traps to emerge, substantial health improvements are needed to escape from the bear-pit of deprivation. In copying some of the processes that led the currently developed countries to escape from the Malthusian poverty trap to the Modern Growth regime, a renewed effort to enhance health conditions is required in order to break the cycle of poverty.[Resumen] La tesis analiza un mecanismo que relaciona la malnutrición y la persistencia de la pobreza en los países en desarrollo. En particular, se demuestra que el estado nutricional afecta a la capacidad de aprendizaje de los niños y por lo tanto, influye en la acumulación de capital humano. Además, se establece la existencia de una relación intergeneracional entre estado de salud de los padres y estado de salud de los hijos. Teniendo en cuenta estos resultados, se desarrolla un modelo de generaciones solapadas con fertilidad endógena que permite explicar la formación de trampas de pobreza. Finalmente, se discute el papel de los avances en ámbito sanitario en la salida del ciclo de pobreza analizada