Shocks and Mental Health – Panel Data Evidence from South Africa
EfD Authors:
Households in developing countries are subject to considerable risk and shocks, but most don’t have the ability to deal with them using formal mechanisms. We use five rounds of South African NIDS panel data and investigate the impact of shocks on the mental health of individuals. We find that experiencing idiosyncratic shocks, such as the death of a supportive family member and loss of assets, has significant negative impacts on mental health.
Household’s Choice of Healthcare Provider in Kenya
EfD Authors:
People respond in different manners to various injuries or illnesses. Factors that influence response to illness or injuries are usually categorized into enabling factors, predisposing factors and perceived factors. These responses are self-treatment, seeking healthcare services from professional healthcare providers (private, public and mission healthcare facilities), seeking treatment from traditional healers and not seeking treatment at all. Despite an increase in the utilization rate of healthcare facilities, there is still a high prevalence of self-treatment among households in Kenya.
The Effects of Household Shocks on Child Nutrition Status in Tanzania
EfD Authors:
The main objective of this paper is to examine the effects of household shocks on thenutrition status of children between 0–59 months in Tanzania. The study employed the national panel survey data of Tanzania collected in three waves: 2008/09, 2010/11, and 2012/13. The study used the panel random-effects probit model to estimate the effects of household shocks on child nutrition status, measured by binary variables: stunting, wasting, and underweight. Findings indicated that weather shocks increase the probability of a child being stunted and underweight.
An Econometric Analysis of Maize Farmer’s Choice of Land Ownership System: Evidence Using Panel Data from Tanzania
EfD Authors:
This paper determines the socioeconomic and physical characteristics that influence maize farmer’s choice of land ownership systems in Tanzania, i.e., owned, sharecropped, and rented title land. The paper uses the Tanzania National Panel Survey (TZNPS) data basing on 2,073 observations comprising of a sample size of 691 households in three consecutive waves 2008/2009, 2010/2011, and 2012/2013.
The effect of forest land use on the cost of drinking water supply: machine learning evidence from South African data
EfD Authors:
Water quality amelioration is one of the key ecosystem services provided by forests in the catchment areas of water supply systems. In this study, we applied random effect models and the least absolute shrinkage and selection regression method of machine learning to South African panel data to estimate the causal effect of natural forest cover on municipalities’ water treatment cost. We controlled for a range of confounding covariates including other land cover variables including wetlands, plantation forests, grassland, woodland etc.
Quantifying COVID-19’s Silver Lining: Avoided Deaths from Air Quality Improvements in Bogotá
There is no economic case for more coal power plants in India
EfD researchers E. Somanathan and Shoibal Chakravarty argue in a study that backing the coal plants expansion policy is flawed . They outline the private and external costs of electricity from coal
