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Title: Can Benefits from Malaria Eradication be Increased? Evidence from the Costa Rican Malaria Campaigns
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2015
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Abstract: The estimated benefits of growing in a cohort with much decreased exposure to malaria, have been very different in terms of human capital accumulation. This paper presents the first estimation of the impact of a malaria eradication campaign in Costa Rica and explores if pre-campaign local characteristics can improve or damage the benefits of the health campaign. Results show that cohorts born during the first eradication campaign had positive gains in terms of human capital accumulation and wages earned by male workers. A one standard deviation decrease in malaria increases the years of education by 1.8%, and increases the wage earned by males by 5.2%. Results are robust to the inclusion of several controls. Point estimates for the malaria resurgence show that these human capital gains were almost completely eliminated when shortage of funding for eradication led to a resurgence of malaria, emphasizing the fragility of the benefits estimated. When local characteristics are incorporated in the marginal effect, results show that cantons more concerned with educational attendance benefited more and cantons with a more developed child labor market benefited less from the eradication campaign. Motivation for education do not matter when the students are dropping out of school. But the outside option of the labor market seems to play an important role. Hence, health benefits may not be able to translate into educational gains when motivation for schooling is low, or when the child labor market provides a better investment opportunity than schooling. † This paper is a version of the first chapter of my PhD thesis, undertaken at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. I am very grateful to my advisor Jeanne Lafortune for her unconditional guidance and support. I also thank
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Authors: Alberto Mora, Claudio
Publisher: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS International
Topics: Education, Other
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