| 1. |
- Almas, Ingvild, et al.
(författare)
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The macroeconomics of pandemics around the world : Lives versus livelihoods revisited
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 163
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The COVID-19 pandemic led governments around the world to impose unprecedented restrictions on economic activity. Were these restrictions equally justified in poorer countries with fewer demographic risk factors and less ability to weather economic shocks? We develop and estimate a fully specified model of the macroeconomy with epidemiological dynamics, incorporating subsistence constraints in consumption and allowing preferences over lives versus livelihoodsto vary with income. Poorer countries' demography pushes them unambiguously toward laxer policies. But because both infected and susceptible agents near the subsistence constraint will remain economically active in the face of infection risk and even to some extent under government containment policies, optimal policy in poorer countries pushes in the opposite direction. Moreover, for reasonable income -elasticities of the value of a statistical life, the model can fully rationalize equally strict or stricter policies in poorer countries.
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| 2. |
- Bold, Tessa, et al.
(författare)
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Market Access and Quality Upgrading : Evidence from Four Field Experiments
- 2022
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Ingår i: The American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 112:8, s. 2518-2552
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Smallholder farming in many developing countries is characterized by low productivity and low-quality output. Low quality limits the price farmers can command and their potential income. We conduct a series of experiments among maize farmers in Uganda to shed light on the barriers to quality upgrading and to study its potential. We find that the causal return to quality is zero. Providing access to a market where quality is paid a market premium led to an increase in farm productivity and income from farming. Our findings reveal the importance of demand-side constraints in limiting rural income and productivity growth.
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| 3. |
- Cocciolo, Serena, et al.
(författare)
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Do Community Water Sources Provide Safe Drinking Water? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Rural Bangladesh
- 2021
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Ingår i: The World Bank Economic Review. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0258-6770 .- 1564-698X. ; 35:4, s. 969-998
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Health, and in turn income and welfare, depend on access to safe drinking water. Although the majority of rural households worldwide obtain drinking water from community water sources, there is limited evidence about how effectively these sources provide safe drinking water. This study combines a randomized experiment with water quality testing to evaluate the impact of a program that provides community deep tubewells in rural Bangladesh. The program reduces exposure to arsenic, a major natural pollutant, but not fecal contamination. Households may use fewer sources with fecal contamination, but any such effects are offset by recontamination through transport and possibly storage. The results suggest that while community deep-tubewell construction programs may reduce exposure to arsenic in Bangladesh, reducing exposure to fecal contamination may require interventions that go beyond community sources.
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| 4. |
- Cocociolo, Serera, et al.
(författare)
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Time is not money : randomized experiment with community contribution requirements in cash and labour
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Development projects that set out to provide local public goods and services almost universally require communities to contribute collectively towards project costs. But despite the ubiquity of such requirements, we know little with certainty about their consequences, including whether consequences differ when communities contribute in cash or labour. Using a randomized experiment, we evaluate how requiring communities to contribute affects the impact of projects that aim to provide safe drinking water wells in rural Bangladesh. Cash contribution requirements strongly reduce take-up and impact relative to a contribution waiver. Labour contribution requirements with similar value if priced at the market wage do not, most likely because most households value their time below the market wage. These results suggest that in poor rural areas, where the monetary value of time is low, projects that require contributions may realize substantial welfare gains by replacing cash contribution requirements with labour contribution requirements. However, imposing any contribution requirement increases coordination and monitoring costs. After accounting for these costs, requiring communities to contribute decreases cost-effectiveness, undermining a central rationale for imposing such requirements.
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| 5. |
- Ghisolfi, Selene, 1988-
(författare)
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Fairness, technology adoption, water sanitation and pandemic control : Six essays on four topics in Development Economics
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Contribution Requirements and Redistribution Decisions: Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh uses a controlled experiment to assess the effects of requiring co-funding to development programs on the efficiency and distribution of benefits within the community.Market Access and Quality Upgrading: Evidence from Randomized Experiments tests if increasing reward to quality produce improves profits, agricultural productivity, and input use, using a randomized experiment in Uganda. How do community contribution requirements affect local public good provision? Experimental evidence from safe water sources in Bangladesh evaluates how community contribution requirement –in cash and labour– change take-up and impact of a development intervention through a randomized experiment of water source construction.Do community water sources provide safe drinking water? Evidence from a randomized experiment in rural Bangladesh exploits a random experiment to analyse how effectively the construction of community water sources improves drinking water quality.Predicted COVID-19 fatality rates based on age, sex, comorbidities, and health system capacity extrapolates adjustments to estimate COVID-19 fatality rates from high-income to lower-income regions.The Macroeconomics of Pandemics in Developing Countries: an Application to Uganda models how optimal pandemic containment varies from high- to lower-income countries.
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| 6. |
- Ghisolfi, Selene, et al.
(författare)
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Predicted COVID-19 fatality rates based on age, sex, comorbidities and health system capacity
- 2020
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Ingår i: BMJ Global Health. - : BMJ. - 2059-7908. ; 5:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Early reports suggest the fatality rate from COVID-19 varies greatly across countries, but non-random testing and incomplete vital registration systems render it impossible to directly estimate the infection fatality rate (IFR) in many low- and middle-income countries. To fill this gap, we estimate the adjustments required to extrapolate estimates of the IFR from high-income to lower-income regions. Accounting for differences in the distribution of age, sex and relevant comorbidities yields substantial differences in the predicted IFR across 21 world regions, ranging from 0.11% in Western Sub-Saharan Africa to 1.07% for high-income Asia Pacific. However, these predictions must be treated as lower bounds in low- and middle-income countries as they are grounded in fatality rates from countries with advanced health systems. To adjust for health system capacity, we incorporate regional differences in the relative odds of infection fatality from childhood respiratory syncytial virus. This adjustment greatly diminishes but does not entirely erase the demography-based advantage predicted in the lowest income settings, with regional estimates of the predicted COVID-19 IFR ranging from 0.37% in Western Sub-Saharan Africa to 1.45% for Eastern Europe.
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