Accounting for Longevity: Cross-State Economic Performance in India, 1981-2019
Pratyasha Acharya, Beverley Essue, Sumit Kane, Ajay Mahal
We analyze growth in full income, accounting for the value of reductions in mortality risks, across 15 major Indian states from 1981 to 2019. We followed Becker et al.’s (2005) approach that used the compensating variation method to measure the monetary value of longevity gains. Full income per person in India grew at an annual average rate of 5.8% compared to 4.4% for real income per capita from 1981 to 2019. Longevity gains accounted for 45.5% of full income gains nationally and were higher in poorer states (52%) than in their richer counterparts. There was some evidence of inter-regional divergence, with full income growth in the poorest region averaging 5.3% annually during 1981-2019, compared to 6.4% annually for the richest region over the same period. We also sought to examine economic gains from a gender lens by comparing inter-regional performance in full income based on valuing gains in females’ longevity, concluding that gender-inclusive full income grew faster nationally than a measure that did not directly account for it.
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Paper Keywords
Economic growth, Longevity, Convergence, Full income, Welfare