[Convergence in health: dream or reality?]

In the last fifty years the distance between the poorest and the richest countries, measured in income per capita, has augmented. Keeping in mind the absence of economic convergence, this paper use the life expectancy data compiled by the World Bank for 125 countries to examine whether their health levels have converged in the period 1960-1992. In order to answer this question we apply the concepts of beta and sigma convergence and the evolution of the distribution developed in the economic literature. The most relevant results that arise from the analysis are that 1) there is convergence in the health levels in the world during the period 1960-89, 2) the existence of convergence is not sensible to the measure used but it is to the variable used to proxy the health level, 3) the speed of convergence fell down from the eighties, and 4) the African countries reduced the distance from their health level to the levels of the rest of the world but, within Africa, the differences increased along 1960-92. These evidences suggest a nonlinear relation between health and income per capita.