Does the level of infant mortality affect the rate of decline?
Bishai D; Opuni M; Poon A Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe St., Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. dbishai@jhu.edu Some scholars have suggested that an inverse care law holds for infant mortality–that infant mortality reductions are more rapid in regions with lower infant mortality. This theory has not been subjected to proper quantitative analysis. This paper examines time series data on infant mortality from 21 countries to test whether percentage reductions in infant mortality are larger when infant mortality is lower. We apply the Dickey-Fuller generalized least squares (DFGLS) unit root test to infant mortality rate (IMR) time series data from 21 mostly European nations for 1870-1988 to test the statistical significance of beta in a regression analysis of Deltaln IMR(t)=alpha+beta ln IMR(t-1)+epsilon(t). Evidence that beta is significant and negative would support the claim that infant mortal
