Economics & Human Biology最新文献

{"title":"Power to choose? Examining the link between contraceptive use decision and domestic violence","authors":"Manini Ojha ,&nbsp;Karan Babbar","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101416","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101416","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Contraception is a crucial tool that empowers women to control their bodily autonomy. Concurrently, domestic violence remains a pressing public health issue, depleting women’s autonomy. We establish a causal link between a woman’s contraceptive use decision and the occurrence of intimate partner violence. We use an instrumental variable approach to estimate our causal effects by utilizing nationally representative data for India. Using exogenous variation in the neighbourhood average of women’s exposure to family planning messages via radio, we find that if a woman independently makes the decision to use contraceptives, she is at a significantly higher risk of physical, sexual and emotional domestic violence. We estimate the bounds of our effects by assuming the IV to be plausibly exogenous, where we relax the exogeneity condition. Our findings underscore the importance of reproductive health in initiatives that reduce domestic violence and targeted policies that provide support to younger and employed women and those from backward caste and rural areas.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101416"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141998092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Long-term exposure to ambient PM2.5 and population health: evidence from linked census data","authors":"Neil Rowland ,&nbsp;Duncan McVicar ,&nbsp;Stavros Vlachos ,&nbsp;Babak Jahanshahi ,&nbsp;Mark E. McGovern ,&nbsp;Dermot O’Reilly","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101417","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101417","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Particulate matter suspended in the air that is comprised of microscopic particles with a diameter of 2.5μm or less (PM_2.5) is among the most impactful pollutants globally. Extensive evidence shows exposure to ambient PM_2.5 is associated with a wide range of poor health outcomes. However, few studies examine long-run pollution exposures in nationally representative data. This study exploits Census data for Northern Ireland, linked to average PM_2.5 concentrations at the 1x1km grid-square level during the period 2002–2010. We combine outcome measures in 2011 with data on complete residential histories. Before adjusting for other covariates, we show strong relationships between PM_2.5 exposure, self-rated general health, disability, and all available (eleven) domain-specific health measures in the data. Associations with poor general health, chronic illness, breathing difficulties, mobility difficulties, and deafness are robust to extensive conditioning and to further analysis designed to examine sensitivity to unobserved confounders.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101417"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000698/pdfft?md5=d1a1268b99030344d3cb77ec106e93f9&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000698-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142086923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The role of economic news in predicting suicides","authors":"Francesco Moscone ,&nbsp;Elisa Tosetti ,&nbsp;Giorgio Vittadini","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101413","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101413","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper we explore the role of media and language used to comment on economic news in nowcasting and forecasting suicides in England and Wales. This is an interesting question, given the large delay in the release of official statistics on suicides. We use a large data set of over 200,000 news articles published in six major UK newspapers from 2001 to 2015 and carry sentiment analysis of the language used to comment on economic news. We extract daily indicators measuring a set of negative emotions that are often associated with poor mental health and use them to explain and forecast national daily suicide figures. We find that highly negative comments on the economic situation in newspaper articles are predictors of higher suicide numbers, especially when using words conveying stronger emotions of fear and despair. Our results suggest that media language carrying very strong, negative feelings is an early signal of a deterioration in a population’s mental health.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101413"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000650/pdfft?md5=237f61c53adf3c0485d41bd926ee4334&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000650-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142021359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Road to perdition? The effect of illicit drug use on labour market outcomes of prime-age men in Mexico","authors":"José-Ignacio Antón ,&nbsp;Juan Ponce ,&nbsp;Rafael Muñoz de Bustillo","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101415","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101415","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This research addresses the impact of illicit drug use on labour market outcomes of men in Mexico. We leverage statistical information from three waves of a comparable national survey and make use of the Lewbel’s heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variable strategy to deal with the endogeneity of the drug consumption. Our results suggests that drug consumption has fairly negative effects in the Mexican context: it reduces employment, occupational attainment and formality and raises unemployment of local males. These effects seem larger than those estimated for high-income economies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101415"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000674/pdfft?md5=235bc64ea886e62d7fea9e955d07daf0&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000674-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141983786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Health welfare in the digital era: Exploring the impact of digital trade on residents' health","authors":"Jianlong Wang ,&nbsp;Haitao Wu ,&nbsp;Yong Liu ,&nbsp;Weilong Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101414","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101414","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>As a product combining information and communication technology, digital technology, and traditional trade, digital trade represents a new form of international trade development in the context of economic globalization. As its scale continues to expand, digital trade not only profoundly impacts consumer health behaviors and environmental pollution control but also enhances opportunities for residents to access healthcare products and services. This could potentially have a significant promoting effect on residents' health levels. However, the extent and mechanisms through which digital trade affects residents' health remain unclear. Accordingly, this study fills in a gap in the research by calculating the provincial-level digital trade index for China from 2012–2020 and matching it with data from the China Family Panel Studies. The goal is to find the micro-causal mechanisms of digital trade on residents' health from green consumption and environmental improvement perspectives. The results show that digital trade reduces residents' medical expenses and improves their health. We use a quasi-natural experiment by treating the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone as a digital trade treatment group and conducting a difference-in-differences estimation, finding that the health effects of digital trade remain significant. Heterogeneity indicates that the health effects of digital trade are powerful for middle- and high-income households and rural residents. In the east and center, in regions with well-developed transportation infrastructure and digital financial inclusion, the development of digital trade is more conducive to residents' health. Additionally, we demonstrate that digital trade can affect residents' health by promoting green consumption, eliminating energy poverty (i.e., improving indoor air pollution), and enhancing environmental quality (i.e., improving outdoor environmental pollution). This study provides solid scientific empirical evidence for enhancing human sustainable development through global digital trade.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101414"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141876595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Trust predicts compliance with COVID-19 containment policies: Evidence from ten countries using big data","authors":"Francesco Sarracino ,&nbsp;Talita Greyling ,&nbsp;Kelsey J. O'Connor ,&nbsp;Chiara Peroni ,&nbsp;Stephanie Rossouw","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101412","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101412","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We use Twitter, Google mobility, and Oxford policy data to study the relationship between trust and compliance over the period March 2020 to January 2021 in ten, mostly European, countries. Trust has been shown to be an important correlate of compliance with COVID-19 containment policies. However, the previous findings depend upon two assumptions: first, that compliance is time invariant, and second, that compliance can be measured using self reports or mobility measures alone. We relax these assumptions by calculating a new time-varying measure of compliance as the association between containment policies and people's mobility behavior. Additionally, we develop measures of trust in others and national institutions by applying emotion analysis to Twitter data. Results from various panel estimation techniques demonstrate that compliance changes over time and that increasing (decreasing) trust in others predicts increasing (decreasing) compliance. This evidence indicates that compliance changes over time, and further confirms the importance of cultivating trust in others.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101412"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000649/pdfft?md5=f4587bc47ac25965a4eb031f29c0712d&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000649-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141762345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Health impact evaluation of Aspirational Districts Program in India: Evidence from National Family Health Survey","authors":"Sandip K. Agarwal,&nbsp;Shubham Mishra","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101411","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101411","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The Aspirational District Program (ADP) is a unique initiative of Government of India launched in 2018 that aims to reduce inter-district multidimensional inequality. ADP aims to bring the least developed districts to catch up with the rest of the other districts in the country. The program is comprehensive in its scope as it targets improvement of several key development indicators spanning health and nutrition, education, agriculture and water resources, financial inclusion and skill development and basic infrastructure indicators. Aspirational districts (ADs) are eligible for enhanced funding and priority allocation of various initiatives undertaken by the central and the state governments. Our research estimates the causal impact of ADP on the targeted health and nutrition indicators using a combination of propensity score matching and difference-in-differences (PSM-DID). We use the fourth and fifth rounds of National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data collected in 2015–16 and 2019–21 respectively which serve as the pre and post-treatment data for our analysis. Moreover, we take advantage of the transparent mechanism outlined for the identification of ADs under ADP, which we use for propensity score matching for our PSM-DID. While we observe negative impact of ADP on early initiation of breastfeeding, we believe that the impact is confounded with the effects of Covid-19 since part of NFHS-5 data was collected during the pandemic. However, the negative impact of ADP on early initiation of breastfeeding disappears when we only use pre-covid data (i.e. data for districts from states surveyed before the pandemic). Additionally, using pre-covid data we find a reduction in the prevalence of underweight children younger than 5 years to an extent of 2 to 4 percentage points in ADs as an impact of ADP, which is robust across multiple specification. We do not find evidence of a positive or a negative impact of ADP on any other health and nutrition indicators. Future research efforts should be made towards impact evaluation of all the targeted indicators in order to get a comprehensive unbiased evaluation of ADP.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101411"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141629849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Baby bump? Birth month, family income, and early childhood development","authors":"Katherine Engel ,&nbsp;Dave E. Marcotte","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101409","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101409","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Federal and state laws in the U.S. provide families with babies born just before the end of the year with thousands of dollars in tax savings. Because this income windfall is realized during the first few months of a newborn’s life, we assess whether babies born in December experience developmental advantages in early childhood compared to those born right after the New Year. Using data from the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we implement a regression discontinuity design that exploits variation in birth timing. We first illustrate that the tax savings received by families with end of year babies are substantial. We then show that while children born in December have a weight disadvantage at birth compared to those born in January, they have an average weight-gain advantage of between 0.7 and 1.5 pounds (0.08–0.17 standard deviations) during subsequent follow-up interviews. We also find that end-of-year babies reach early developmental milestones faster, but exhibit no advantage in memory, word recognition, or applied problem solving. This end-of-year birth developmental advantage is consistent with the identified tax savings from end-of-year births.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101409"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141472134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Coupling and decoupling of ancestral linkages and current cross-border economic activities: Genetics and policy","authors":"Suparna Chakraborty ,&nbsp;Miao Grace Wang ,&nbsp;M. C. Sunny Wong","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101410","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper studies the potential link between the biological evolution of populations and present-day economic interactions by estimating the correlation of shared ancestry among populations with cross-border capital and human flows. To this end, we employ the new concept of genetic distance, based on (dis)similarity of neutral gene alleles, to quantify shared ancestry. We then incorporate the genetic distance measure into an augmented gravity model, traditionally used to analyze the effect of geographical distance on bilateral exchange. Our analysis focuses on bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) and migration across 135 countries and we use both linear regression techniques as well as the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood Estimator to account for any non-linearities in the model. Our results show that a 1% increase in genetic distance reduces FDI flows by 0.08% while controlling for other distance constructs and factors associated with global capital and human movement. Genetic distance also has a negative effect on migration, where a 1% increase in genetic distance reduces migration flows by 0.22%, with all other things remaining constant. Our study, therefore, links shared ancestry with economic behavior, showing how historical connections are associated with current economic exchanges among nations. Additionally, recognizing that ancestral ties are outside human control, we examine policy measures that help nations overcome such distance barriers. Our findings show that strengthening a nation’s institutional quality and adherence to the rule of law can effectively mitigate any negative correlation of distance constructs with economic exchanges. These insights suggest that prudent policies to foster a stable business environment are essential for any nation to attract FDI and human capital, even from geographically or genetically distant nations.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101410"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141438578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Long-term effects of early life rainfall shocks on foundational cognitive skills: Evidence from Peru","authors":"Nicolás Pazos ,&nbsp;Marta Favara ,&nbsp;Alan Sánchez ,&nbsp;Douglas Scott ,&nbsp;Jere Behrman","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101407","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101407","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Global warming is changing precipitation patterns, particularly harming communities in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs). Whilst the long-term effects of being exposed to rainfall shocks early in life on school-achievement tests are well-established, there is little population-based evidence from LMICs on the mechanisms through which these shocks operate. Executive functions (EFs) are key for children’s learning abilities. This paper analyses the effects of early exposure to rainfall shocks on four foundational cognitive skills (FCSs), including EFs that have been found to be key predictors of educational success. These skills were measured via a series of tablet-based tasks administered in Peru as part of the Young Lives longitudinal study (YLS). We combine the YLS data with gridded data on monthly precipitation to generate monthly, community-level rainfall shock estimates. The key identification strategy relies on temporary climatic shocks being uncorrelated with other latent determinants of FCSs development. Our results show significant negative effects of early life exposure to rainfall shocks on EFs—especially, on working memory—measured in later childhood. We also find evidence of rainfall shocks decreasing households’ abilities to invest in human capital, which may affect both FCSs and domain-specific test scores. Finally, there is suggestive, but not conclusive, evidence that a conditional-cash-transfer program providing poor households with additional financial resources might partially offset the effects of the rainfall shocks.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101407"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141278584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}