nep-hea New Economics Papers
on Health Economics
Issue of 2021‒08‒30
23 papers chosen by
Nicolas R. Ziebarth
Cornell University

  1. The Affordable Care Act After a Decade: Industrial Organization of the Insurance Exchanges By Benjamin R. Handel; Jonathan T. Kolstad
  2. Optimal fuel taxation with suboptimal health choices By Mattauch, Linus; van den Bijgaart, Inge; Klenert, David; Sulikova, Simona
  3. Buying Control? 'Locus of Control' and the Uptake of Supplementary Health Insurance By Bonsang, Eric; Costa-Font, Joan; de New, Sonja C.
  4. The Welfare Effects of Time Reallocation: Evidence from Daylight Saving Time By Joan Costa-Font; Sarah Fleche; Ricardo Pagan
  5. How Do Job Conditions Amplify the Impacts of Mental Health Shocks? By Dain Jung; Do Won Kwak; Kam Ki Tang; Myra Yazbeck
  6. Inexpensive Heating Reduces Winter Mortality By Janjala Chirakijja; Seema Jayachandran; Pinchuan Ong
  7. Dark Half: Decentralized Bargaining and Well-Being at Work By Maczulskij, Terhi; Haapanen, Mika; Kauhanen, Antti; Riukula, Krista
  8. A Watershed Moment: The Clean Water Act and Infant Health By Patrick Flynn; Michelle M. Marcus
  9. Job Displacement, Unemployment Benefits and Domestic Violence By Bhalotra, Sonia; Britto, Diogo G. C.; Pinotti, Paolo; Sampaio, Breno
  10. The Effect of the Sex Buyer Law on the Market for Sex, Sexual Health and Sexual Violence By Peter Backus; Thien Nguyen
  11. Smoke gets in your shape: The effects of smoking on body weight in Indonesia By Adrianna Bella; Temesgen Kifle; Kam Ki Tang
  12. Cigarette Taxes, Smoking, and Health in the Long Run By Friedson, Andrew I.; Li, Moyan; Meckel, Katherine; Rees, Daniel I.; Sacks, Daniel W.
  13. One-minute earthquake, years of patience: Evidence from Mexico on the effect of earthquake exposure on time preference By Pierre-Guillaume Méon; Robin Rampaer; David Raymaekers
  14. The Impact of Changing Climate on Children's Nutritional Status in Bangladesh By Hanifi, S.M. Manzoor Ahmed; Menon, Nidhiya; Quisumbing, Agnes
  15. Five lessons from COVID-19 for advancing climate change mitigation By Funke, Franziska; Mattauch, Linus; Klenert, David; O'Callaghan, Brian
  16. Cost/benefit analysis of Covid-19 pandemic suppression using an SEIR model By Vines, David; Maciejowski, Jan; Rowthorn, Robert; Sheffield, Scott; Williamson, Annie
  17. Household Income and Spending in the United States During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic By Fourie, Johan; Norling, Johannes
  18. The Pandemic, The Climate, and Productivity By C. A. K. Lovell
  19. Voting, Contagion and the Trade-Off between Public Health and Political Rights: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Italian 2020 Polls By Mello, Marco; Moscelli, Giuseppe
  20. Measuring excess mortality: the case of England during the Covid-19 Pandemic By Aron, Janine; Muellbauer, John
  21. Transatlantic excess mortality comparisons in the pandemic By Aron, Janine; Muellbauer, John
  22. A Proposal to End the COVID-19 Pandemic By Ruchir Agarwal; Ms. Gita Gopinath
  23. The effect of domestic violence on cardiovascular risk By Menon, Seetha

  1. By: Benjamin R. Handel; Jonathan T. Kolstad
    Abstract: The regulated insurance exchanges set up in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were designed to deliver affordable, efficient health coverage through private insurers. It is crucial to study the complex industrial organization (IO) of these exchanges in order to assess their impacts to date, during the first decade of the ACA, and in order to project their impacts going forward. We revisit the inherent market failures in health care markets that necessitate key ACA exchange regulations and investigate whether they have succeeded in their goals of expanding coverage, creating robust marketplaces, providing product variety, and generating innovation in health care delivery. We discuss empirical IO research to date and also highlight shortcomings in the existing research that can be addressed moving forward. We conclude with a discussion of IO research-based policy lessons for the ACA exchanges and, more generally, for managed competition of private insurance in health care.
    JEL: G22 H2 I11 I13
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29178&r=
  2. By: Mattauch, Linus; van den Bijgaart, Inge; Klenert, David; Sulikova, Simona
    Abstract: Transport has a large number of significant externalities including carbon emissions, air pollution, accidents, and congestion. Active travel such as cycling and walking can reduce these externalities. Moreover, public health research has identified additional social gains from active travel due to health benefits of increased physical exercise. In fact, on a per mile basis, these benefits dominate the external social costs from car use by two orders of magnitude. We introduce health benefits and active travel options into an optimal taxation model of transport externalities to study appropriate policy responses. We characterise the optimal second-best fuel tax analytically: when physical exercise is considered welfare-enhancing, the optimal fuel tax increases. Under central parameter assumptions it rises by 49% in the US and 36% in the UK. This is due to the low fuel price elasticity of active travel. We argue that fuel taxes should be implemented jointly with other policies aimed at increasing the uptake of active travel to reap its full health benefits.
    Keywords: Transport Externalities, Congestion, Active travel, Fuel, Health Behaviour, Optimal Taxation
    JEL: H23 I12 Q53 Q54 Q58 R41 R48 Z28
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2020-22&r=
  3. By: Bonsang, Eric (Université Paris-Dauphine); Costa-Font, Joan (London School of Economics); de New, Sonja C. (Monash University)
    Abstract: This paper analyses the relationship between locus of control (LOC) and the demand for supplementary health insurance. Drawing on longitudinal data from Germany, we find robust evidence that individuals having an internal LOC are more likely to take up supplementary private health insurance (SUPP). The increase in the probability to have a SUPP due to one standard deviation increase in the measure of internal LOC is equivalent to an increase in household income by 14 percent. Second, we find that the positive association between selfreported health and SUPP becomes small and insignificant when we control for LOC, suggesting that LOC might be an unobserved individual trait that can explain advantageous selection into SUPP. Third, we find comparable results using data from Australia, which enhances the external validity of our results.
    Keywords: positive selection, locus of control, risk aversion, health care use, private health insurance, supplementary insurance, Germany, Australia
    JEL: I18 D15
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14633&r=
  4. By: Joan Costa-Font (CEP - LSE - Centre for Economic Performance - LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science, IZA - Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit - Institute of Labor Economics); Sarah Fleche (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEP - LSE - Centre for Economic Performance - LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science); Ricardo Pagan (Universidad de Málaga [Málaga] = University of Málaga [Málaga])
    Abstract: Daylight Saving Time (DST) is currently implemented by more than seventy countries, yet we do not have a clear knowledge of how it affects individuals' welfare. Using a regression discontinuity design combined with a differences-in-differences approach, we find that the Spring DST causes a significant decline in life satisfaction. By inducing a reallocation of time, the transition into DST deteriorates sleep and increases time stress, which in turn affects physical and emotional health. After performing a simple cost-benefit analysis, we find evidence suggestive that ending DST would exert a positive effect on welfare, namely the wellbeing costs associated with DST exceed its benefits.
    Keywords: Daylight Saving Time,wellbeing,health,sleep,time stress
    Date: 2021–08–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-03322741&r=
  5. By: Dain Jung (Liaoning University); Do Won Kwak (Korea University); Kam Ki Tang (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia); Myra Yazbeck (University of Ottawa)
    Abstract: Although there is a large literature on the direct effects of job conditions such as unemployment or job insecurity on mental health, little is known about how the job conditions of individuals may amplify the impact of mental health shocks originated from sources unrelated to the labour market. This paper aims to fill this gap. Using the panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, we first establish that negative life events unrelated to the labour market have significant adverse impact on individuals’ mental health, and then demonstrate that both job insecurity and job stress exacerbate the impact. We also find gender heterogeneity in the results that job insecurity and job stress affect mostly female workers.
    Date: 2021–08–17
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:647&r=
  6. By: Janjala Chirakijja; Seema Jayachandran; Pinchuan Ong
    Abstract: This paper examines how the price of home heating affects mortality in the US. Exposure to cold is one of the reasons that mortality peaks in winter, and a higher heating price increases exposure to cold by reducing heating use. In addition, a higher price raises energy bills, which could also affect health by decreasing other healthpromoting spending. Our empirical approach combines spatial variation in the energy source used for home heating and temporal variation in the national prices of natural gas and electricity. We find that a lower heating price reduces winter mortality, driven mostly by cardiovascular and respiratory causes. The effect is especially large in highpoverty communities.
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:msh:ebswps:2021-9&r=
  7. By: Maczulskij, Terhi (ETLA - The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy); Haapanen, Mika (Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics); Kauhanen, Antti (ETLA - The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy); Riukula, Krista (ETLA - The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy)
    Abstract: Using information on collective agreements and administrative data on mental ill-health, sickness absence, and job separations, we study the effect of decentralization on well-being at work in Finland. Our regression results with individual-and firm-level fixed effects show that decentralized wage bargaining leads to distinct outcomes for different employee groups. For example, white-collar employees in white-collar intensive firms show increased well-being at work. In contrast, all employees in blue-collar intensive firms show quite strong and negative responses to decentralization. Decentralization affects mostly job-separation behavior and mental ill-health, whereas no consistent effects for sickness absence are observed. Whether the mechanisms between decentralization and worker's well-being is explained by pay dispersion, wage level, or different preferences toward wage policy needs to be explored further.
    Keywords: decentralization, collective agreements, mental health disorder, sickness absence, job separation, blue-collar, white-collar
    JEL: J31 J51 J52
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14654&r=
  8. By: Patrick Flynn; Michelle M. Marcus
    Abstract: The Clean Water Act (CWA) significantly improved surface water quality, but at a cost exceeding the estimated benefits. We quantify the effect of the CWA on a direct measure of health and incorporate health benefits into a cost-benefit analysis. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we compare health upstream and downstream from wastewater treatment facilities before and after CWA grant receipt. Pollution only decreased downstream from facilities required to upgrade their treatment technology, and we leverage this additional variation with a triple difference. CWA grants increased average birth weight by 8 grams. A back-of-the-envelope calculation bounds infant health benefits below $29 billion.
    JEL: H51 I1 Q51 Q53
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29152&r=
  9. By: Bhalotra, Sonia (University of Warwick, CEPR, IZA, IEA); Britto, Diogo G. C. (Bocconi University, BAFFI-CAREFIN, CLEAN Center for the Economic Analysis of Crime, GAPPE/UFPE, IZA); Pinotti, Paolo (Bocconi University, BAFFI-CAREFIN, CLEAN Center for the Economic Analysis of Crime, CEPR); Sampaio, Breno (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, BAFFI-CAREFIN, CLEAN Center for the Economic Analysis of Crime, GAPPE/UFPE, IZA)
    Abstract: We estimate impacts of male job loss, female job loss, and male unemployment benefits on domestic violence in Brazil. We merge employer-employee and social welfare registers with administrative data on domestic violence cases brought to criminal courts, use of public shelters by victims and mandatory notifications of domestic violence by health providers. Leveraging mass layoffs for identification, we find that both male and female job loss, independently, lead to large and pervasive increases in domestic violence. Exploiting a discontinuity in unemployment insurance eligibility, we find that eligible men are not less likely to commit domestic violence while benefits are being paid, and more likely to commit it once benefits expire. Our findings are consistent with job loss increasing domestic violence on account of a negative income shock and an increase in exposure of victims to perpetrators, with unemployment benefits partially offsetting the income shock while reinforcing the exposure shock.
    Keywords: domestic violence, unemployment, mass layoffs, unemployment insurance, income shock, exposure, Brazil JEL Classification:
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:573&r=
  10. By: Peter Backus; Thien Nguyen
    Abstract: We evaluate the effect of the 2015 criminalization of the purchasing of sexual services in Northern Ireland on the market of such services, sexually transmitted infections and sexual violence. This sub-national change in sex market regulation gives us an opportunity to estimate the causal effects of this new law which has become increasingly popular with policymakers over the last 20 years. Based on newly constructed data sets, our results indicate that the law reduced, temporarily, the size of the market for sexual services and fees for sexual services, lowered sexually transmitted infection rates among women and increased sexual violence committed against women. These results are largely consistent with recent evidence on the effects of different kinds of sex market regulation.
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:man:sespap:2106&r=
  11. By: Adrianna Bella (Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives, Jakarta, Indonesi); Temesgen Kifle (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia); Kam Ki Tang (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia)
    Abstract: Literature has shown inconclusive evidence regarding the relationship between smoking and body weight. Utilising panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) 1993–2014, this study sets out to re-investigate this relationship in Indonesia—a country with the world’s highest male smoking rate. We estimate the impacts of current and former smoking behaviours on BMI by addressing the endogeneity issues using fixed effects instrumental variables (FEIV) and fixed effects (FE) methods, respectively. We find no causal contemporaneous impact of smoking and smoking intensity on male and female BMI, however, we find that quitting smoking has positive but small effects on male BMI, and the magnitude of the effect is positively related to the previous smoking intensity, the duration of smoking, and the duration since quitting.
    Keywords: smoking, body weight, BMI, Indonesia
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:646&r=
  12. By: Friedson, Andrew I. (University of Colorado Denver); Li, Moyan (Indiana University); Meckel, Katherine (University of California, San Diego); Rees, Daniel I. (University of Colorado Denver); Sacks, Daniel W. (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)
    Abstract: Medical experts have argued forcefully that using cigarettes harms health, prompting the adoption of myriad anti-smoking policies. The association between smoking and mortality may, however, be driven by unobserved factors, making it difficult to discern the underlying long-term causal relationship. In this study, we explore the effects of cigarette taxes experienced as a teenager, which are arguably exogenous, on adult smoking participation and mortality. A one-dollar increase in teenage cigarette taxes is associated with an 8 percent reduction in adult smoking participation and a 6 percent reduction in mortality. Mortality effects are most pronounced for heart disease and lung cancer.
    Keywords: smoking, cigarette taxes, mortality
    JEL: H2 I10 I12
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14644&r=
  13. By: Pierre-Guillaume Méon; Robin Rampaer; David Raymaekers
    Abstract: Using a survey of nearly 20,000 Mexican residents matched with data on 50 earthquakes, we observe evidence that people affected by an earthquake report a lower discount rate, implying greater patience. The effect is stronger for more intense earthquakes and is robust to controlling for a series of socioeconomic variables, locality, and event fixed effects. It is not driven by changes in risk aversion, expected future income streams, or life expectancy, nor is it impacted by people moving in or out of affected localities. People react in the same way regardless of their age at the time of the earthquake, in line with the life-long openness hypothesis. Estimates suggest that the effect of more intense earthquakes diminishes slowly, persisting over decades. This effect is independent of gender but varies with education and wealth. Finally, respondents who have experienced an earthquake adjust their savings and health-related behaviors in ways consistent with a decrease in their discount rate.
    Keywords: Natural disasters; Time preference
    JEL: D91 Q54
    Date: 2021–08–17
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/330528&r=
  14. By: Hanifi, S.M. Manzoor Ahmed (International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research); Menon, Nidhiya (Brandeis University); Quisumbing, Agnes (International Food Policy Research Institute)
    Abstract: This paper studies the impact of climate change on the nutritional status of very young children between the ages of 0 – 3 years by using weather data from the last half century merged with rich information on child, mother and household characteristics in rural coastal Bangladesh. We evaluate the health consequences of rising temperature and relative humidity and varying rainfall jointly. Leveraging a saturated fixed-effects model that controls for annual trends and location-specific seasonality, and that allows the impacts of temperature to vary non-parametrically while rainfall and humidity have flexible non-linear forms, we find that extreme heat and humidity in the month of birth exert significant negative effects on children's nutritional status as measured by mid upper arm circumference. The impact of humidity in particular persists when child, mother and household controls are included. We find that exposure to changing climate in utero and in the month of conception also matters. Possible explanations for our findings include consequences of varying heat, humidity, and rainfall on the extent of pasture, rain-fed and irrigated lands, on the propensity of household out-migration, and on mother's age at first marriage. We employ alternate models and undertake falsification tests to underline the robustness of the estimates. Our results indicate that climate change has real consequences for the health of very young populations who are in vulnerable areas.
    Keywords: climate change, temperature, humidity, rainfall, Bangladesh, children, mid upper arm circumference, non-parametric, non-linear
    JEL: Q54 I15 O15 Q56 J13
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14657&r=
  15. By: Funke, Franziska; Mattauch, Linus; Klenert, David; O'Callaghan, Brian
    Abstract: The nexus of COVID-19 and climate change has so far brought attention to short-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, public health responses and clean recovery stimulus packages. We take a more holistic approach, making five broad comparisons between the crises with five associated lessons for climate change mitigation policy. First, delay is costly. Second, policy design must overcome biases to human judgment. Third, inequality can be exacerbated without timely action. Fourth, global problems require multiple forms of international cooperation. Fifth, transparency of normative positions is needed to navigate value judgments at the science-policy interface. Learning from policy actions during the COVID-19 crisis could enhance efforts to reduce GHG emissions and prepare humanity for future crises.
    Date: 2020–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2020-16&r=
  16. By: Vines, David; Maciejowski, Jan; Rowthorn, Robert; Sheffield, Scott; Williamson, Annie
    Abstract: In the United Kingdom, as elsewhere, there has been a debate on how to escape from lockdown without provoking a resurgence of the Covid-19 disease. This paper presents a simple cost-benefit analysis inspired by optimal control theory, incorporating an SEIR model of disease propagation. Our calibration accords with UK experience and simulations start from the beginning of January 2021. The optimal path for government intervention is computed under different assumptions about the value of life. We examine how the test & trace system and vaccination affect this optimal path and show that these policies are complements. Test & trace has most effect at the beginning when prevalence is high, whereas vaccination only affects infections gradually. Comparing optimal paths, we show that economic cost is much lower under vaccination alone than under test & trace alone. Deaths, in contrast, are somewhat higher under vaccination. In general, the greater is the value of life, the longer is the optimal lockdown. Under certain conditions, this relationship is discontinuous: a small increase in the value of life leads to a jump in the optimal length of lockdown.
    Keywords: Covid-19, cost-benefit, lockdown, SEIR, pandemic
    Date: 2021–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2021-14&r=
  17. By: Fourie, Johan (Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University, South Africa); Norling, Johannes (Department of Economics, Mount Holyoke College, United States)
    Abstract: How did the 1918 influenza outbreak, the deadliest pandemic of the twentieth century, affect household income and spending in the United States? Using the 1917–1919 BLS cost of living survey, we compare households in 99 cities observed at different stages of the pandemic. We find a six percent decrease in real income, driven by cities with higher mortality. Men’s wages fell, but more women worked. People spent less on nondurable goods and services, about the same on durables, and more on medicine. Spending varied by region, age, and affluence. Governmentimposed non-pharmaceutical interventions had little correlation with consumer behavior.
    Keywords: Spanish flu, Pandemic, Income, Spending JEL Classification: N32, I18
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:571&r=
  18. By: C. A. K. Lovell (The University of Queensland, Australia)
    Abstract: The pandemic depression and climate change have buffeted the global economy and more. The pandemic has caused the deepest depression in a century, has had a devastating impact on human health and morbidity, and has exacerbated global inequalities. Climate change has exacted its own economic toll, has had its own adverse impacts on human health and global inequalities, and continues to wreak havoc on the global environment. I survey the literatures exploring the two challenges as at mid-2021, separately and jointly because they interact. I survey the impacts of the pandemic on global value chains, on aggregate and business output and employment, and on productivity. I survey the impacts of climate change on aggregate and business adaptation, the last line of defence, on agriculture, where the impacts are particularly severe, on business, and on productivity. I continue with an exploration into the linkages between the two challenges, and efforts to decouple them through a wide range of green growth policies. Throughout I emphasise the important role played by management, at business, national and global levels, in allocating resources to counter the impacts of both challenges. I acknowledge that the pandemic and climate change are evolving, the former encouragingly rapidly until the unwelcome arrival of the Delta variant, and the latter depressingly slowly, and consequently this survey is aiming at a pair of moving targets.
    Keywords: pandemic, climate change, green growth, productivity, management
    JEL: O44 Q54 Q58
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uqcepa:165&r=
  19. By: Mello, Marco (University of Surrey); Moscelli, Giuseppe (University of Surrey)
    Abstract: We exploit a quasi-experimental setting provided by an election day with multiple polls to estimate the effect of voters' turnout on the spread of new COVID-19 infections and to quantify the policy trade-off implied by postponing elections during high infection periods. We show that post-poll new COVID cases increased by 1.1% for each additional percentage point of turnout. The cost-benefits analysis based on our estimates and real political events shows that averting an early general election has saved Italy up to about e362 million in additional hospital care costs and e7.5 billion in values of life saved from COVID.
    Keywords: control function, endogeneity, event-study, public health, civic capital, voting, COVID-19
    JEL: C23 D72 H51 I18
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14658&r=
  20. By: Aron, Janine; Muellbauer, John
    Abstract: Excess mortality data avoid miscounting deaths from under-reporting of Covid-19-related deaths and other health conditions left untreated. According to EuroMOMO, which tracks excess mortality for 24 European states, England had the highest peak weekly excess mortality in total, for the over-65s, and, most strikingly, for the 15-64 age group. This column argues that research is needed into such divergent patterns. It suggests that national statistical offices should publish P-scores (excess deaths divided by 'normal' deaths) for states and sub-regions, and permit EuroMOMO to publish P-scores as well as their less transparent Z-scores. This would aid comparability, better inform pandemic policy, and allow lessons to be drawn across heterogeneous regions and countries.
    Date: 2020–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2020-11&r=
  21. By: Aron, Janine; Muellbauer, John
    Abstract: In a previous article, we considered key issues for comparing rates of excess mortality between countries and regions, with an application to European countries. This article compares the U.S. with Europe, and U.S. regions with the main European countries. The U.S. policy-makers had multiple advantages over European countries, such as Italy and Spain, in responding to the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic: more time to react, with excess deaths lagging three weeks behind, and a younger, less densely-populated, less urban population. With the further passage of time, medical knowledge about Covid-19 has improved, health and testing capacities have been built up and practical experience has allowed both the private precautionary responses of citizens and of public policies to develop. This should have given countries and regions, for example, the U.S. South, the West and the Midwest, together accounting for 83 percent of the U.S. population, and where the spread of virus occurred later, a further advantage over those caught up in the first pandemic wave. Despite this, a comparison for the whole of the U.S. with Europe, excluding Russia, shows that the cumulative rate of excess mortality in 2020 was higher in the U.S.. And for the U.S. Northeast, the most comparable U.S. region, being closest to major European countries in the timing of the pandemic, and in population-density, age and urbanisation, the plausible measures of excess mortality prove substantially worse than for the worst-affected countries in Europe. These findings contradict recent claims by the U.S. President.
    Date: 2020–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2020-18&r=
  22. By: Ruchir Agarwal; Ms. Gita Gopinath
    Abstract: Urgent steps are needed to arrest the rising human toll and economic strain from the COVID-19 pandemic that are exacerbating already-diverging recoveries. Pandemic policy is also economic policy as there is no durable end to the economic crisis without an end to the health crisis. Building on existing initiatives, this paper proposes pragmatic actions at the national and multilateral level to expeditiously defeat the pandemic. The proposal targets: (1) vaccinating at least 40 percent of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 and at least 60 percent by the first half of 2022, (2) tracking and insuring against downside risks, and (3) ensuring widespread testing and tracing, maintaining adequate stocks of therapeutics, and enforcing public health measures in places where vaccine coverage is low. The benefits of such measures at about $9 trillion far outweigh the costs which are estimated to be around $50 billion—of which $35 billion should be paid by grants from donors and the residual by national governments potentially with the support of concessional financing from bilateral and multilateral agencies. The grant funding gap identified by the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator amounts to about $22 billion, which the G20 recognizes as important to address. This leaves an estimated $13 billion in additional grant contributions needed to finance our proposal. Importantly, the strategy requires global cooperation to secure upfront financing, upfront vaccine donations, and at-risk investment to insure against downside risks for the world.
    Keywords: COVID-19; Pandemic; Economic crisis; pandemic policy; financing facilities; donor country; LMIC vaccination; vaccination target; Income; Manufacturing; Global; Africa
    Date: 2021–05–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfsdn:2021/004&r=
  23. By: Menon, Seetha (Department of Business and Economics)
    Abstract: The prevalence of metabolic risk factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease (CVD), such as hypertension and high plasma glucose levels have seen a substantial increase globally. Violence elevates stress and increases CVD risk and yet, there is sparse evidence on the relationship between domestic violence and CVD risk factors. This study presents new empirical evidence by leveraging biomarker data from a large nationally representative survey. I find (i) a consistent positive causal effect of physical violence on prevalence of hypertension amongst women, (ii) a positive causal effect of emotional and sexual violence on prevalence of hypertension amongst women, (iii) No discernible effects of domestic violence on CVD risk for the men in these relationships.
    Keywords: Cardiovascular risk; domestic violence; hypertension; diabetes
    JEL: I12 I14 J12 J16
    Date: 2021–08–16
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sdueko:2021_007&r=

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