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Oxford Economic Papers 2007 59(3):379-410; doi:10.1093/oep/gpm020
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Oxford University Press 2007

Health as human capital: synthesis and extensions1

Gary S. Becker

Department of Economics, University of Chicago, 1126 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA, and Hoover Institution; e-mail: gbecker@uchicago.edu

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.


   1. Introduction
 
The first major collection of articles on human capital (Schultz, 1962Go) contained discussions of education, on the job training, migration, and health. While literally thousands of articles and books followed on human capital dimensions of education and training, there have been many fewer discussions of health as human capital. This is partly because the contribution on health in this volume is not particularly insightful, but it is also because the concept of health as human capital relies on somewhat different concepts than does education or training.

A major step forward occurred with Grossman's work (Grossman, 1972Go) that modeled optimal investment in increasing longevity. This article stimulated a large literature, but nevertheless, articles on health as human capital have been only a small fraction of those on education and training. In fact, most of the economics literature on health discusses ways to improve the delivery of health care services, . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   2. Theory
 
2.1 The statistical value of life
2.2 Expected utility
2.3 The statistical value of life

   3. Complementarities
 
3.1 Between diseases
3.2 Between ages

   4. Health and addictions
 

   5. Education and health
 

   6. Health and the discount rate
 

   7. Inequality, health, and other human capital
 

   8. Investment in R&D and population
 
8.1 A model of drug innovation
8.2 Population and the demand for innovations
8.3 Population and the aggregate value of declines in mortality
8.4 The cost of medical innovations and population
8.5 Explaining the declines over time in age-specific death rates
8.6 The potential cost of an avian flu pandemic

   9. National income accounts and changes in world inequality
 

   10. Conclusions
 

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