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on Development |
| By: | Debebe, Z.Y.; Mebratie, A.D.; Sparrow, R.A.; Dekker, M.; Alemu, G.; Bedi, A.S. |
| Abstract: | We analyse the effects of ill-health on household economic outcomes in Ethiopia, using three years of household panel data and event history interviews. We examine the immediate effects of a variety of ill-health measures on health expenditure and labour supply, the subsequent household coping responses, and finally the effect on household income and consumption. We find evidence of substantial economic risk in terms of increased health expenditure and reduced agricultural productivity. Households cope by resorting to intra-household labour substitution, hiring wage labour, borrowing and depleting assets. While households are able to maintain food consumption, we observe imperfect insurance of non-food consumption. This effect is larger for households with the lowest ability to self-insure. Maintaining current consumption through borrowing and depletion of assets and savings is unlikely to be sustainable and displays the need for interventions that work towards reducing the financial consequences of ill-health. |
| Keywords: | health shocks, ill-health, consumption insurance, health expenditure, labour supply, poverty dynamics, Ethiopia |
| Date: | 2014–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:euriss:76962&r=dev |
| By: | Ani Rudra Silwal (Department of Economics, University of Sussex, Falmer, United Kingdom); Andy McKay (Department of Economics, University of Sussex, Falmer, United Kingdom) |
| Abstract: | The vast majority of households in low-income countries cook with firewood, which is known to produce various airborne toxins. We examine whether cooking with firewood results in poorer respiratory health by using a unique Indonesian household survey that collected direct measures of lung capacity. We find that individuals living in households that cook with firewood have 11.2 per cent lower lung capacity than those that cook with cleaner fuels. This impact is larger for women and children than for men. The results strongly support the international policy focus on encouraging households to switch to cooking with cleaner fuels. |
| Keywords: | Health production; Indoor air pollution; Household energy use |
| JEL: | I12 Q53 O13 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sus:susewp:7214&r=dev |
| By: | Woutersen, Tiemen; Khandker, Shahidur R. |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether the utilization of microcredit programs has a significant impact on the income and net worth of the participants. Several micro finance institutes are optimistic on the beneficial effects of microcredit programs. Others describe microcredit with interest rates in excess of 20 percent as a poverty trap. This paper uses more than 20 years of panel data on households in Bangladesh to estimate bounds on the causal effects of microcredit programs. The analysis rejects the hypothesis that these microcredit programs are a poverty trap. Moreover, the paper finds moderately positive effects of such programs. |
| Keywords: | Access to Finance,Debt Markets,Rural Poverty Reduction,Microfinance,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis |
| Date: | 2014–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7040&r=dev |
| By: | Elodie Blanc; Aurelia Lepine; Eric Strobl |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the determinants of crop yield and profit of small family farms in Senegal using both a production and a profit function. The econometric analysis is based on information on agricultural inputs and outputs from 505 agricultural household members of a farmer organization in the Saint Louis region collected in 2009. The analysis of our results indicate that the development of commercialization sectors and agricultural loans would be required prior to increasing agricultural inputs. Our findings also suggest that information on planting technique, soil preparation and management of lands could allow productivity increases, but that an increase in the bargaining power of farmers is required to increase unit prices and consequently their profits. |
| Keywords: | crop productivity; profit; family farms; Senegal |
| Date: | 2014–09–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipg:wpaper:2014-596&r=dev |
| By: | Ozier, Owen |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether a large-scale deworming intervention aimed at primary school pupils in western Kenya had long-term effects on young children in the region. The paper exploits positive externalities from the program to estimate the impact on younger children who did not receive treatment directly. Ten years after the intervention, large cognitive effects are found -- comparable to between 0.5 and 0.8 years of schooling -- for children who were less than one year old when their communities received mass deworming treatment. Because mass deworming was administered through schools, effects are estimated among children who were likely to have older siblings in schools receiving the treatment directly; in this subpopulation, effects are nearly twice as large. |
| Keywords: | Disease Control&Prevention,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Educational Sciences,Youth and Governance,School Health |
| Date: | 2014–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7052&r=dev |
| By: | Almer, C; Laurent-Lucchetti, Jeremy; Oechslin, Manuel |
| Abstract: | Every year, riots cause a substantial number of fatalities in less-advanced countries. This paper explores the role of agricultural output shocks in explaining riots. Our theory predicts a negative relationship between the level of rioting and the deviation of the actual output from the average one. Relying on monthly data at the cell level (0.5×0.5 degrees), and using a drought index to proxy for output shocks, our empirical analysis confirms such a negative relationship for Sub-Saharan Africa: A one-standard-deviation decrease in the drought index rises the likelihood of a riot in a given cell and month by 8.4 percent. The use of highly disaggregated data accounts for the fact that riots are temporally and geographically confined events. |
| Keywords: | conflict; social unrest; economic shocks; disaggregated analysis |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eid:wpaper:40956&r=dev |