Nations with higher economic growth have longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality. Can we successfully test that statistically, do you think? There's a lot of causation from economic prosperity to things like schooling and quality of institutions. The data do at least suggest that if you hold constant things like the initial level of per capita GDP and education there is some indication of prior years of life expectancy predict future economic growth.
Russ Roberts interviews Robert Barro, Harvard University Professor and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, on the economics of growth, what the developed world can do to help poor people around the world, and the role of US assets and the dollar in world finance.