Economics & Human Biology最新文献

{"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}

{"title":"Pain and subjective well-being among older adults in the developing world : A comprehensive assessment based on the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health","authors":"Silas Amo-Agyei ,&nbsp;Jürgen Maurer","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101406","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101406","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper studies the association of pain with subjective well-being (SWB) and time use among older adults in five low- and middle-income countries using data from the first wave of the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health. We suggest a novel use of anchoring vignettes as direct control functions to account for potentially correlated reporting behaviors such as correlated response scales when analyzing the relationship between subjective variables such as self-reported pain and SWB. Exploiting detailed data on individual time use and several complementary measures of SWB, including fine-grained activity-specific affective experiences derived from an abbreviated version of the Day Reconstruction Method, we find that both evaluative and experienced well-being are markedly lower for people living with pain compared to those without pain. These disparities persist even after controlling for possible confounding from reporting behaviors through the use of anchoring vignettes. Differences in experienced utility by pain status appear to be exclusively due to worse affective experiences during daily activities for those with pain, which seem to be partially mediated through changes in their functional limitations. Pain-related differences in time use, in turn, seem to provide only small compensating effects, underscoring important challenges to the use of changed activity patterns as a viable coping strategy for individuals enduring pain.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101406"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000583/pdfft?md5=1f97b2ffe39ee909325ce1f36e8be231&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000583-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141274693","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":"It never rains but it pours: Austerity and mortality rate in peripheral areas","authors":"C. Guccio ,&nbsp;G. Pignataro ,&nbsp;F. Vidoli","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101408","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study examines the impact of austerity measures on mortality rates across Italian regions from 2003 to 2018. Since 2007, regions experiencing substantial healthcare financial deficits have been required to implement recovery plans (RPs). We use a recent difference-in-differences staggered matching estimator to assess the effects of this austerity policy on municipal-level monthly mortality rates. This allows us to evaluate the policy’s spatial heterogeneity across treated municipalities, accounting for their distance from the nearest hospital. The analysis reveals a significant negative impact of austerity measures on health, particularly in peripheral areas and among vulnerable populations. Mortality rates are higher in regions under RPs, with this effect escalating with increasing distance from hospitals. The policy’s impact is also more pronounced among vulnerable populations, with differences observed between genders and across seasons.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101408"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000601/pdfft?md5=744cfae518373882d116812b7ea65ddd&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000601-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141303430","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":"Mother’s age at marriage and gender-differential in child schooling: Evidence from Pakistan","authors":"Sumeet Ashok ,&nbsp;Mazhar Mughal ,&nbsp;Rashid Javed","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101405","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101405","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this study, we provide empirical evidence in support of intergenerational effects of women’s marriage age on girl-specific child education outcomes using a nationally representative household survey of 24,809 households from Pakistan. Our key findings are four-fold: First, we find that mother’s age at marriage has no girl-specific impact on the education of children of school going age in terms of school enrolment, type of school (public/private) or education expenditure. However, there is a positive effect of delaying mother’s marriage on girls in terms of relative grade progression and primary school attainment, implying that late-marrying mothers are more likely to transfer their human capital advantages/disadvantages to the daughters. Second, the impact does not depend on whether the child is firstborn or later-order, youngest child or with no siblings. Sex of the previous child does not affect the relationship either. Third, the beneficial impact of mother’s marriage age on girls’ education is visible only in the cohort of women who got married in 2000 or later. Fourth, father’s marriage age is significantly associated with an increase in daughters’ school enrolment and primary completion. The impact of smaller spousal age difference is also positive. These findings are robust to the use of empirical strategies and specifications that address potential endogeneity, collider bias, recall bias, sample selection and confounding factors. These findings suggest that delay in women’s marriage is helping to narrow down gender disparities in education. The findings underscore the need to promote social and behavioural changes that encourage later marriages.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101405"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000571/pdfft?md5=368fd648b9ac45bc5a930a4afb64ded4&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000571-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141280959","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":"Fuel poverty and mental health in a COVID-19 context","authors":"Dorothée Charlier,&nbsp;Bérangère Legendre","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101404","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Fuel poverty is a widespread problem which affects people's health and has serious economic and social repercussions. Mental health has been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and appears to be particularly influenced by fuel poverty. We analyze this relationship while highlighting the unequal vulnerability of individuals in the population. We first built a novel database of 4194 representative observations of the French adult population. We then used a conditional mixed-process model to quantify the causal effect of fuel poverty on mental health using instrumental variables to overcome potential endogeneity. We prove the robustness of this causal effect by providing different sensitivity tests. Our results show that being fuel poor decreases the mental health score by 6.3 points out of 100. Fuel poverty also increases the depression score by 5.35 points, the anxiety score by 6.48 points, and decreases the social health score by 6.82 points. Our results show that tackling energy poverty can lead to positive spillover effects to improve mental health. Mitigation policies to provide energy-efficient housing should also become a priority to address climatic and economic hazards in the long term because they imply co-benefits in health.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101404"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X2400056X/pdfft?md5=d47f8213a9055e9acdfc740042bcae20&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X2400056X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141250975","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":"Explaining adverse cholesterol levels and distinct gender patterns in an Indonesian population compared with the U.S.","authors":"Ralph Lawton ,&nbsp;Elizabeth Frankenberg ,&nbsp;Teresa Seeman ,&nbsp;Arun Karlamangla ,&nbsp;Cecep Sumantri ,&nbsp;Duncan Thomas","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101403","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Cardiovascular disease is among the most common causes of death around the world. As rising incomes in low and middle-income countries are accompanied by increased obesity, the burden of disease shifts towards non-communicable diseases, and lower-income settings make up a growing share of cardiovascular disease deaths. Comparative investigation of the roles of body composition, behavioral and socioeconomic factors across countries can shed light on both the biological and social drivers of cardiovascular disease more broadly. Comparing rigorously-validated measures of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol among adults in the United States and in Aceh, Indonesia, we show that Indonesians present with adverse cholesterol biomarkers relative to Americans, despite being younger and having lower body mass index. Adjusting for age, the gaps increase. Body composition, behaviors, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics that affect cholesterol do not explain between-country HDL differences, but do explain non-HDL differences, after accounting for medication use. On average, gender differences are inconsistent across the two countries and persist after controlling observed characteristics. Leveraging the richness of the Indonesian data to draw comparisons of males and females within the same household, the gender gaps among Indonesians are not explained for HDL cholesterol but attenuated substantially for non-HDL cholesterol. This finding suggests that unmeasured household resources play an important role in determining non-HDL cholesterol. More generally, they appear to be affected by social and biological forces in complex ways that differ across countries and potentially operate differently for HDL and non-HDL biomarkers. These results point to the value of rigorous comparative studies to advance understanding of cardiovascular risks across the globe.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101403"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000558/pdfft?md5=83b42321ed699da1cc024ddbcf5f09b8&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000558-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141302605","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":"Family poverty and adolescents’ cognitive and noncognitive outcomes: Evidence from China","authors":"Jiwei Chen,&nbsp;Zongli Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101402","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101402","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Using data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) during the 2013–2014 academic year, this paper examines the effects of family poverty on adolescents’ cognitive and noncognitive outcomes. We find that family poverty is detrimental to adolescent development. Children from poor families have poorer academic performance and noncognitive abilities. We also find that the negative effects of family poverty are more pronounced among children with urban <em>hukou</em>, boys, and children from one-child families. Furthermore, we find that there are multiple channels behind the estimated effects, including parental educational expectations, parental education investments, and parent-child relationship. This paper opens up the “black box” of family poverty affecting children’s development, which can provide reference for governments to design measures aimed at eliminating poverty trap.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101402"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141048351","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}