TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lichtenberg,Frank R.
TI  - Pharmaceutical Innovation and Longevity Growth in 30 Developing and High-income Countries, 2000-2009
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18235
PY  - 2012
Y2  - July 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18235
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18235.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Frank R. Lichtenberg
Columbia University
504 Uris Hall
3022 Broadway
New York, NY  10027
Tel: 212/854-4408
Fax: (212) 854-9895
E-Mail: frl1@columbia.edu
AB  - We examine the impact of pharmaceutical innovation, as measured by the vintage of prescription drugs used, on longevity, using longitudinal, country-level data on 30 developing and high-income countries during the period 2000-2009.  We control for fixed country and year effects, real per capita income, the unemployment rate, mean years of schooling, the urbanization rate, real per capita health expenditure (public and private), the DPT immunization rate, HIV prevalence and tuberculosis incidence.

Life expectancy at all ages and survival rates above age 25 increased faster in countries with larger increases in drug vintage.  The increase in drug vintage was the only variable that was significantly related to all of these measures of longevity growth.  Controlling for all of the other potential determinants of longevity did not reduce the vintage coefficient by more than 20%.  Pharmaceutical innovation is estimated to have accounted for almost three-fourths of the 1.74-year increase in life expectancy at birth in the 30 countries in our sample between 2000 and 2009, and for about one third of the 9.1-year difference in life expectancy at birth in 2009 between the top 5 countries (ranked by drug vintage in 2009) and the bottom 5 countries (ranked by the same criterion).
ER  -