| 1. |
- Andersson, Jens, et al.
(författare)
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Long-term Drivers of Taxation in Francophone West Africa 1893–2010
- 2019
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Ingår i: World Development. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-5991 .- 0305-750X. ; 114:February, s. 294-313
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Which factors have driven fiscal revenue in Sub-Saharan Africa in the long run? We address this question by studying quantitatively the long-term relationship between fiscal outcomes, economic expansion and external dependency in four francophone West African countries – Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and Senegal – between 1893 and 2010. Using panel co-integration modelling we find a long-term relationship between, on the one hand, tax revenue and local economic development, proxied by international trade, and, on the other hand, tax revenue and developments of the economy and taxation in the former colonizing power France. The results indicate that economic expansion has been a significant factor in driving the long-term development of tax revenue in West Africa, just as it was in historical Europe, but also point to the historical vulnerability and external dependency of the fiscal systems of the four West African countries. We suggest that the wider implication of these results is that they point to the importance of deepening our understanding of how domestic contexts interact with external economic and institutional external forces to shape African fiscal systems, in contrast to factors such as inter-state warfare that are ubiquitous in narratives of historical European taxation and state development.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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Defeating Disease : Lasting Effects of Public Health and Medical Breakthroughs between 1880 and 1945 on Health and Income in Sweden
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis has the general aim of exploring the role of public health and medical interventions between 1880 and 1945, targeting infectious diseases, in health and income improvements in Sweden throughout the twentieth century. It applies methods of causal inference to longitudinal individual-level data from both local and national datasets combined with multisource archival data on the implementation of reforms. The bacteriological discoveries of the latter part of the nineteenth century helped the public to target infectious diseases through isolation, disinfection and treatment. The studies of this thesis show that these societal measures have had a sizable role in the contemporaneous decline in infectious disease rates. In the pre-drug period, public health interventions related to isolation and disinfection substantially reduced infant, child and infectious disease mortality in southern Sweden. In the period after the nationwide introduction of sulpha antibiotics in Sweden, the vast majority of the pneumonia decline was attributable to the antibiotics.Moreover, these studies find that by reducing the likelihood of infection, societal health measures led to beneficial consequences for the income and long-term health of the affected cohorts, extending through old age. In the long term, the cohorts treated in the early neonatal period by qualified midwifery in southern Sweden obtained strong reductions in all-cause mortality in adulthood and in mortality due to cardiovascular diseases and diabetes in old age. Throughout rural Sweden, similar preventive measures extended the lives and positively affected the lifetime incomes in old ages. The reduction in pneumonia mortality due to the nationwide arrival of sulpha antibiotics boosted the labour income and health of the cohorts that received these antibiotics in infancy. The largest effects on health have been found for hospitalizations due to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, arthritis and respiratory diseases.This thesis therefore supports the endogenous growth theory, which posits an interaction between health improvements in early childhood and health technology, based on application of the germ theory of disease, as a determinant of economic growth in the long run. Although the health benefits due to this dynamic process cannot be viewed as a main driver of economic growth, societal health investments nonetheless led to income growth sufficient to yield a high rate of return on the investment. The cause – that is, the reforms under study that are targeting infectious disease – and the consequence, reductions in the rates of specific chronic diseases in adulthood and old age, point to the inflammation mechanisms behind the lasting effects. The studies also suggest that the early neonatal period and infancy are the critical period for intervening such processes.
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| 4. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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Early-Life Assets in Oldest-Old Age : Evidence From Primary Care Reform in Early Twentieth Century Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: Demography. - : Duke University Press. - 0070-3370 .- 1533-7790. ; 56, s. 679-706
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Do early-life effects of investments in public health persist to the oldest-old ages? This article answers this question by using the primary care reform in rural Sweden that between 1890 and 1917 led to the establishment of local health districts, together with openings of hospitals and recruitments of medical personnel, as a natural experiment in early-life environmental conditions. The initiatives undertaken within these districts targeted control of infectious diseases, including various isolation and disinfection measures. This study applies a difference-in-differences method combined with propensity score matching to register-based individual-level data for Sweden from 1968 to 2012 and to multisource, purposely collected data on the reform implementation. Providing pioneering evidence for such a distal relationship (ages 78–95), this study finds that treatment through primary care in the year of birth leads to a significant reduction in all-cause mortality (4 % to 6%) and mortality from cardiovascular diseases (5 % to 6 %) and to an increase in average incomes (2 % to 3 %). The effects are universal and somewhat stronger among individuals from poor socioeconomic backgrounds and at higher baseline levels of disease burden.
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| 5. |
- Lazuka, Volha, et al.
(författare)
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Fighting Infectious Disease: Evidence from Sweden 1870-1940
- 2015
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Fighting infectious disease in the past, much like today, focused on isolating the disease and thereby stopping its spread. New insights into the modes of transmission and the causal agents in the mid-nineteenth century, together with fear of new epidemic outbreaks, motivated public investments aimed at reducing mortality from infectious disease. Combining longitudinal individual-level data on 17,000 children in a rural/semi-urban region in southern Sweden with parish-level data on public health investment from local ledger registers, we explore the effects of public health initiatives, such as the establishment of isolation hospitals and improved midwifery, on infant and child mortality. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the establishment of isolation hospitals in the mid-1890s had been efficient in reducing child mortality, while the reformation of the midwife system after 1900s led to the decline in infant mortality, both by a magnitude of more than 50 per cent.
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| 6. |
- Lazuka, Volha, et al.
(författare)
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Fighting infectious disease: Evidence from Sweden 1870-1940
- 2016
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Ingår i: Population and Development Review. - : Wiley. - 1728-4457 .- 0098-7921. ; 42:1, s. 27-52
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Even more than in developing countries today, public health strategies to fight infectious disease in the past focused on the prevention of new infections by stopping their spread. These strategies were motivated by new insights into the causes of disease and the modes of transmission in the mid-nineteenth century. By combining longitudinal individual-level data on 17,000 children in a rural/semi-urban region in southern Sweden with local community data on public health investments, we explore the effects of the establishment of isolation hospitals and improved midwifery on mortality before age 15. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the establishment of isolation hospitals in the mid-1890s was successful in reducing child mortality, while increases in the number of qualified midwives after the 1900s led to a decrease in infant mortality. In both cases, rates fell by more than 50 percent.
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| 7. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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Heterogeneous Returns to Medical Innovations
- 2021
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper sets up a quasi-experiment to estimate both total and heterogeneous impacts of medical innovations on the individual’s economic outcomes for a comprehensive set of around 90 health conditions. The rich administrative panel data for Sweden covering more than 1 million individuals combined with disease-specific data on new molecular entities and patents granted in healthcare have allowed me to emulate such an experiment. I find that an increase in medical innovations by one standard deviation raises disposable family income by 14.8% [95% CI: 14.4%; 15.1%]. Regarding the sources of income response, medical innovations strongly influence not only own disposable and labour income and sickness and unemployment payments but also a spouse’s income. The effects of medical innovations are especially strong for cancer and circulatory diseases, are moderate for mental and nervous, infectious and respiratory diseases, and are absent or appear as losses for other health shocks. Results also suggest decreasing returns – yet far from reaching zeros – rather than constant returns to scale.
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| 8. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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Infant health and later-life labour market outcomes : Evidence from the introduction of sulfa antibiotics in Sweden
- 2017
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There is a growing body of literature showing that health in infancy has a strong influence on health and productivity later in life. This paper uses exogenous improvements in infant health generated by the introduction of a medical innovation in the late 1930s as treatment against several infectious diseases, in particular pneumonia reduced by the advent of the sulfa medicaments. Based on rich administrative population data for Sweden 1968–2012 and archival data on the availability of sulfa antibiotics, it explores the effect of reduction in exposure to pneumonia in infancy on labour market outcomes discerned in adulthood of the affected cohorts. Our findings suggest that mitigation of pneumonia disease burden in infancy substantially reduced probability of working disability and increased labour income in late adulthood. Regarding the mechanisms, the beneficial effects are strong for health, measured with reduced number of hospital admissions, and somewhat weaker for years of schooling. These effects are fairly equal among males and females, and larger among individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. All effects are robust to various specifications including regional and family factors.
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| 9. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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Infant Health and Later-Life Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from the Introduction of Sulpha Antibiotics in Sweden
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of Human Resources. - 0022-166X. ; 55:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper studies the effects of improvements in infant health produced by the introduction of sulphapyridine in the late-1930s as treatment against pneumonia on outcomes in adulthood. Based on longitudinal individual data for the whole population of Sweden 1968–2012 and archival data on the availability of sulphapyridine and applying a difference-in-differences approach, it finds that mitigation of pneumonia infection in infancy increased labour income in late adulthood by 2.8–5.3 percent. The beneficial effects are strong for health, measured by length of stay in hospital, and weaker for years of schooling. These effects are similar between men and women.
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| 10. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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It’s a long walk : Lasting effects of maternity ward openings on labour market performance
- 2018
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Studies showing that large-scale public health interventions in early life have lasting economic consequences are still scarce and rarely disclose the mechanisms. Being born in a hospital versus having a traditional birth attendant at home represents the most common early life policy change worldwide. Knowing the consequences of this policy is also important given the ongoing enlargement of maternity hospitals. In 1931–1946, the Swedish state subsidized the opening of new maternity wards, which led to the gradual decline of home deliveries assisted by midwives. Maternity wards offered improved conditions for mothers and newborns, including hygiene, surgical proficiency and medications, and health monitoring. By applying a difference-in-differences approach and geocoding techniques to register-based individuallevel data on the total population, observed from birth until the age of 65, this paper explores the long-term economic effects of access to better health services at birth using the opening of maternity wards throughout the country as an early life quasi-experiment. The paper first finds that the reform substantially reduced neonatal mortality in the short term by 19.0–26.5 deaths per 1000. Capturing survivors of the affected cohorts at the ages of 47–64, it then shows sizable long-term effects of the introduction of maternity wards on labour income (2.4–4.7 per cent) and disability pensions (4.4–11.9 per cent). The effects run directly through better health and indirectly through higher levels of schooling. Small-scale local maternity wards yield a larger social rate of return than large-scale hospitals, stemming from the treatment of normal births.
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| 11. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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It’s a long walk: Lasting effects of maternity ward openings on labour market performance
- 2023
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Ingår i: The Review of Economics and Statistics. - : MIT Press - Journals. - 0034-6535 .- 1530-9142. ; 105:6, s. 1411-1425
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Being born in a hospital versus having a traditional birth attendant at home represents the most common early life policy change worldwide. By applying a difference-in-differences approach to register-based individual-level data on the total population, this paper explores the long-term economic effects of the opening of new maternity wards as an early life quasi-experiment. It first finds that the reform substantially increased the share of hospital births and reduced early neonatal mortality. It then shows sizable long-term effects on labour income, unemployment, health-related disability and schooling. Small-scale local maternity wards yield a larger social rate of return than large-scale hospitals.
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| 12. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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It’s a long walk: Lasting effects of the openings of maternity wards on labour market performance
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Studies showing that large-scale public health interventions in early life have lasting consequences are still scarce and rarely disclose the mechanisms. In 1931–1946, the Swedish state reformed the childbirth institutional system that led to the openings of the new maternity wards and to the gradual decline in home deliveries assisted by midwives. Maternity wards offered improved conditions for a mother and a newborn, such as hygiene, surgical proficiency and medications, health monitoring, and opportunity to recover. This paper aims at exploring the long-term economic effects of access to better health services at birth using openings of maternity wards as a quasi-experiment. It employs register-based individual-level data on the total population, observed in the first month of life and in ages 37–64, and multi-sourced archival data on characteristics of the reform. The empirical strategy makes use of a difference-in-differences method and geo-coding techniques. The paper first finds that the reform substantially reduced neonatal mortality in the short term. It then shows sizable long-term effects of the introduction of maternity wards versus a midwifery-assisted home childbirth, amounting 2.4–4.7 percent for labour income and 4.4–11.9 percent for disability pension. The effects run directly through better health (up to 8.5 percent decrease in the length of stay in hospital) and indirectly through higher educational attainment (up to 9.4 percent increase in the propensity to complete high school). Both large-scale remote and small local maternity wards produce similarly strong long-term effects, which are explained by an equal distribution of early-life health technology, exemplified in the paper by the arrival of sulphonamides against puerperal fever.
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| 13. |
- Lazuka, Volha, et al.
(författare)
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Life-Cycle Effects of Comprehensive Sex Education
- 2023
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Sex education can impact pupils’ sexual activity and convey the social norms regarding family formation and responsibility, which can have significant consequences to their future. To investigate the life-cycle effects of social norm transmission, this study draws on the introduction of comprehensive sex education in the curriculum of Swedish primary schools during the 1940s to the 1950s. Inspired by social-democratic values, sex education during this period taught students about abstinence, rational family planning choices, and the importance of taking social responsibility for their personal decisions. The study applies a state-of-the-art estimator of the difference-in-differences method to various outcomes of men and women throughout the life cycle. The results show that the reform affected most intended outcomes for men and women, ultimately decreasing gender inequality in earnings. The effects of the reform also extended to the succeeding generation of girls, encouraging them to choose a profession with prosocial responsibilities and engage in entrepreneurship. The findings suggest that social norms, internalized through schoolbased sex education, shape lifetime outcomes of individuals and their children in significant ways.
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| 14. |
- Lazuka, Volha, et al.
(författare)
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Multigenerational Effects of Smallpox Vaccination
- 2021
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper aims at finding whether vaccination in childhood is an important source of improved health over the life cycle and across generations. We leverage high-quality individual-level data from Sweden covering the full life spans of three generations between 1790 and 2016 and a historical quasi-experiment – a smallpox vaccination campaign. To derive the causal impact of this campaign, we employ the instrumental-variables approach and the siblings/cousins fixed effects. Our results show that the vaccine injection by age 2 improved longevity of the first generation by 14 years and made them much wealthier in adult ages. These effects, with the magnitude reduced by two thirds, persisted to the second and the third generation. Such magnitudes make vaccination a powerful health input in the very long term and suggest the transmission of environmental beyond genetic factors.
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| 15. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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The lasting health and income effects of public health formation in Sweden
- 2017
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Socio-economic inequalities are remarkable in contemporary developed countries and continue to grow. The sources of these phenomena are not understood, and there is no agreement as to when in an individual’s life they originate, from early childhood to adulthood. The literature showing that health in infancy may be an important factor in later-life health and income trajectories is expanding, but empirical evidence is still scarce. This paper is the first to link differences in individual access to better health care during infancy to income and health outcomes in old age. Due to the public health care reform that became one of the first elements of the Swedish welfare state, between 1890 and 1917, all rural areas established local health districts that implemented preventive measures with regard to the spread of infectious diseases. Using administrative longitudinal population data and exploiting exogenous variation in the timing of the implementation of the reform across parishes, we examine whether individuals treated in their infancy have an advantage in old age. Our findings indicate that treatment in the public health care system in infancy leads to a significant reduction in mortality, with the largest effects on cardiovascular diseases and to an increase in individual permanent incomes. The effects are universal across different subpopulations, with somewhat stronger responses among individuals from poor socio-economic backgrounds.
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| 16. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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The lasting health and income effects of public health formation in Sweden
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Socio-economic inequalities are remarkable in contemporary developed countries, and continue to grow. The sources of these phenomena are not understood, and there is no agreement about at which part of an individual’s life they originate, whether in adulthood or in early childhood. The literature showing that health in infancy may be an important factor of later-life health and income trajectories is expanding, but empirical evidence is still scarce. This paper is the first to link individuals’ differences in access to better health care during infancy to income and health outcomes in old ages. Due to the public health care reform that became one of the first elements of the Swedish welfare state, gradually between 1890 and 1917, all rural areas established local health districts which implemented preventive measures with regard to the spread of the infectious diseases. Using administrative longitudinal population data and exploiting variation in the timing of the implementation of the reform across parishes, we examine whether treated individuals have advantages in old ages. Our findings indicate that treatment by the public health care in infancy leads to a significant reduction in mortality, with the largest effects among the cardiovascular diseases, and to an increase in individuals’ permanent incomes. The effects are universal across different subpopulations, with somewhat stronger responses among individuals from poor socio-economic backgrounds.
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| 17. |
- Lazuka, Volha
(författare)
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The long-term health benefits of receiving treatment from qualified midwives at birth
- 2016
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Socio-economic differences in health and mortality are substantial and increasing today in many developed countries. The sources of these differences remain debated. There is an expanding literature showing that early-life conditions are linked to health in adulthood and old age. However, our knowledge about whether beneficial treatments in early life influence later health is still limited. Using longitudinal individual-level data from the Scanian Economic Demographic Database (Sweden) for individuals born between 1881 and 1930 and observed from birth until the age 80, this paper explores the long-term health effects of being born assisted by a qualified midwife. Treatment data is obtained from midwife reports for approximately 7,200 children, which includes information on the type of treatment at birth as well as child and mother health. In a setting of home deliveries, midwives not only provided skilled assistance at childbirth, but also strictly followed disinfection instructions and checked child and mother health within three weeks after birth. Our findings show that individuals treated by qualified midwives at birth and in the first month of life have lower all-cause mortality between ages 15 and 39 and lower mortality from cardiovascular diseases and diabetes between ages 40 and 80, compared to individuals delivered by traditional midwives. The effects are larger for individuals originating from more affluent families. These findings are linked to reductions in exposure to infectious diseases and their interplay with family responses to better infant health.
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| 18. |
- van Dijk, Ingrid Kirsten, et al.
(författare)
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Maternal and infant health development in southern Sweden, 1905-2015: Understanding the role of institutions and medical innovations
- 2022
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Using data from southern Sweden, this work analyses the development of maternal and infant health in five rural parishes and the town of Landskrona in Scania, Sweden, in the last 110 years. First, we address the overall development of maternal, perinatal and infant health using a range of indicators, such as maternal mortality, neonatal mortality, and stillbirth rates. We also describe how institutional and medical changes reached the town of Landskrona and the surrounding rural areas. Second, we relate the development of maternal and infant health to the institutions and medical innovations available in the area, such as the expansion of hospital facilities, availability of antibiotics and the opening of maternity wards and neonatal intensive care units. We estimate the magnitude of the impact on a range of indicators of mother and infant health using time series analysis.
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