Health Economics Commons^™

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Analysing Pandemic Induced Economic Inequality In Developing Nations, Ravneet Kaur Bhogal

International Journal on Responsibility

The dawn of the new decade of the 21st century saw an unprecedented global crisis. This crisis led the world to halt economic and social progress. It led to a galloping increase in the economic inequality and migration of people in search of opportunities to save them from the current situation. The developing nations saw a sea of people migrating back to their roots in search of safe havens. This has led to the loss of jobs which has increased income inequality. Migrants face the risk of contagion and also the possible loss of employment, wages, and health insurance coverage. …

Comparative Analysis Of The Water Crisis In Guam And New Delhi: Evaluating Causes And Potential Solutions, Jordina Marshall

Global Honors Theses

The core topic of this paper will be an examination of a comparative study of the water issue in India, with a particular emphasis on New Delhi, and the water crisis on the island of Guam, with a large amount of focus being placed on an assessment of the possible causes as well as potential remedies. Due to the impact the water problem has on the ecosystem, the welfare of the populace, and the security of their food supply, a solution must be found. There are rising concerns that endangers the health of both of these nations as well as …

The Child Nutrition Cost Of Weather Shocks In Nigeria, Danielle M. Abaya

Master's Theses

Child malnutrition is alarmingly high in Nigeria with the highest number of malnourished children, the second highest population of stunted children worldwide and 17 million Nigerians facing food insecurity. According to the World Health Organization, children are predicted to suffer about 80% of weather-related illnesses and deaths. As climate change continues to pose the greatest health threat and while scientists predict its irreversible effects in the next 10 years, countries such as Nigeria are already experiencing the burden of climate change today. This study uses total rainfall to measure precipitation and two Enhanced Vegetation Index variables, total change in greenness …

The Influences Of The Public Health Care System And Education System On The Economic Growth Of Swaziland, Grace Greer

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Kingdom of Eswatini, also known as Swaziland, has one of the youngest populations in the world with over 70% of citizens being under the age of 18 years old. This creates a substantial opportunity for economic, social, and educational growth in a country previously plagued with diseases such as HIV/AIDS, poor health care infrastructure cutting off thousands from basic care, and an educational system with a very low attendance rate and an even lower graduation rate. By evaluating the root causes of such issues dating back to the colonial era there is an opportunity to reprioritize health care and …

Debt And The Medicare Eligibility Discontinuity: Disparate Effects Across Households, Olivia Falck

Honors Theses

Public health insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid have been shown to help reduce household debt caused by healthcare costs. The impact of health insurance literacy makes the relationship between public health programs and debt more ambiguous. The increasing complexity of Medicare raises the question of whether cost savings associated with enrollment might be mitigated by the complexity of choosing the ideal plan for those with low health insurance literacy. In this study, I utilize the Medicare eligibility cutoff at age 65 to implement a regression discontinuity design that analyzes the impact of Medicare eligibility on household debt and out …

Integrating Feminist Approaches In Counseling Work With Adult Women, Kristen M. Toole

Adultspan Journal

The scope of ‘women’s issues’ in counseling is an ever-evolving landscape. Recent events such as the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on women serve as powerful reminders of the necessity of this focus while underscoring a deep-rooted history of oppressive patriarchal structures. Therefore, counselors must remain informed of the unique considerations surrounding adult women in counseling and acquire proficiency in versatile techniques to meet this population’s nuanced needs. This article examines the complexity of contemporary womanhood and explores the fundamentals of Feminist Counseling Theory (FCT), a holistic, multiculturally conscious, social justice theory in counseling. …

The Evolution Of The Southern Nevada Healthcare Economy: Building The Unlv Academic Health Center, The Lincy Institute

Lincy Institute Events

With the successful launch of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV and the completion of its medical education building, Southern Nevada is positioned to expand its healthcare infrastructure - and its healthcare economy - to create a comprehensive, integrated healthcare system to serve our fast-growing community. As UNLV moves forward with the development of an integrated academic health center within the Las Vegas Medical District, understanding the economic and social benefits of such a transformational project is important to stakeholders throughout the region.

The Lincy Institute hosted representatives of Tripp Umbach - the nation's leading consultant on community …

Three Essays On Development Economics And Human Capital, Arpita Khanna

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

In the first chapter, we estimate the impact of exposure to the 2015 Nepal Earthquake on intimate partner violence with two rounds of Demographic and Health Surveys data. Using differences-in-differences estimation, we find that exposure to the earthquake lead to a statistically and economically significant increase in intimate partner violence in the urban areas but not in the rural areas. This is possibly due to an increase in the stress felt by the victims. We also offer some evidence that the impact heterogeneity between the urban and rural areas is attributable to the differences in the reconstruction processes and assistance …

Using Machine Learning To Analyze Children’S Drawings As Indicators Of Mental Well-Being, Nicholas R. Lawrie

Master's Theses

Human figure drawings are a well-studied diagnostic tool for emotional distress in children. Cleft lip/palate is one of the most common birth defects in the world, and has been shown to negatively impact emotional well-being in childhood which can have negative economic consequences in adulthood. Utilizing a dataset of human figure drawings from children in India and survey data on mental health, this paper will assess the impact of corrective surgery on mental health outcomes, as well as assess the validity of the drawing emotional indicators themselves. The results indicate that while the emotional indicators may not be valid in …

True Price Of A Pack: Tobacco Expenditure And Height-For-Age In Indonesia, Madeline Helfer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

While the negative impact of tobacco on the health of smokers is well known, the ways in which smoking impacts the health of the smoker’s children is less understood. This study explores whether tobacco expenditure increases the risk of stunting among children under the age of five in Indonesia, where smoking and stunting rates are among the highest in Southeast Asia. Given the severe income constraints faced by poor Indonesian households, large tobacco expenditure potentially “crowds-out” spending on nutrition, worsening the nutritional health of children in smoking households. To examine this relationship, I use a sample of children under the …

Economic Impact Of The Western Africa Ebola Outbreak--A Holistic Approach, Xufeng Liu

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The 2014 Western Africa Ebola Epidemic was one of the most severe epidemics in the region’s history, creating considerable health and economic burdens on the affected countries. The first part of this paper relies on several macroeconomic databases from 2009 to 2019 to evaluate the aggregate economic impact of Ebola both in the short- and medium-run. We also use household surveys to assess the microeconomic effects of Ebola on employment and household non-farm enterprises (HNFE) at different phases of the outbreak in Sierra Leone. Our primary estimation method is the Difference-in-Differences approach with the canonical specification where we compare outcome …

Trade Liberalization And The Social Determinants Of Health: A Case Study Of Nafta's Impact On Mexico From 1994 To 2005, Maria Trubetskaya

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Given the increased transnationalization of borders and economic interdependence between countries in the Global North and South, it is imperative to address how these trends impact the health and well being of the populations involved. The conventional neoliberal economic framework, however, falls short in explaining these dynamics due to its overemphasis of proximal determinants of health as direct consequences of commodification and free market activities. In congruence with those theoretical limitations, there is a limited assessment of more distal determinants – the social determinants of health (SDOH) – that are arguably more consequential for health and are interrelated with the …

The Impact Of Afghan Opium Cultivation On The U.S. Opioid Epidemic, Zachary Wahab Cheek

UNL Student Research Days Posters, Undergraduate

I argue here that increases in Afghan opium cultivation, the most prolific in the world, has depressed American prescription opioid and heroin prices, thereby increasing abuse risk in U.S. addict populations and increasing death rates. Utilizing a two-stage regression model with a sparse dataset from several national and international sources, I find evidence that a one percent increase in Afghan opium production is associated with a 0.122 percent increase in prescription opioid overdose deaths, and a 0.367 percent increase in heroin overdose deaths. Assessing the 2001-2002 Taliban opium ban with an identification strategy, I find that in this timeframe prescription …

Temperature Effects On Prevalence Of Sexually Transmitted Infections Among At-Risk Female Sex Workers In India, Rajshri Suresh

Master's Theses

Vulnerability to climate change varies depending on the baseline climate, sensitivity to given exposure, and the presence of social, political, cultural, and institutional inequalities that influence access to essential resources of livelihood, particularly among informal labor market participants. Within the risky informal labor market, the transient nature of sex work implies that sex workers suffer disproportional losses in health, income, protection, and other aspects of general well-being as a result of the effects of climate anomalies. In this paper, I investigate the effect of temperature on the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections in a high-risk population of female sex workers …

From Self-Sufficiency To Import Dependence In The Republic Of The Marshall Islands: Data Issues And Challenges, Debra L. Claypool

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Although it appears likely that the profoundly asymmetrical political and economic relationship between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) has contributed to the abandonment of traditional agriculture, import-dependency, and a decrease in quality of life for the citizens of the RMI, limits in existing quantitative data make it impossible to model exactly how this occurred. Therefore, rather than seek to model this causal relationship, the researcher employed three existing ethnographic studies to establish a quantitative measure of the transformation itself. Using additional government documents to supplement the existing data, a measure of relative percentage of …

How Effective Are African Health Systems? An Analysis Of Guinea, Liberia And Sierra Leone, Kale A. Adote

HON499 projects

While developed countries in the rest of the world have found themselves overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic, in comparison, Africa has been minimally affected given that it has reported lower case counts since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. However, given the destructive potential of this pandemic, this raises the question: how prepared are health systems in Africa to face major outbreaks? To answer this question, this article explored the state of health systems and epidemic preparedness in African countries using Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone as case studies. Given that these three countries were epicentre countries during …

Writing Tips For Economics Research Papers, Plamen Nikolov

Economics Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Eighth Years Of Compulsory Schooling Enforcement In Turkey, Muhammed Tumay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of two chapters that cover Education, Labor and Health Economics.

Chapter 1. Impacts of Compulsory Schooling Reform on Higher Education and Intergenerational Educational Mobility: we estimate the effects of an exogenous increase in mandatory schooling (5 years to 8 years of schooling), as a result of a change in compulsory schooling law, on higher education, potential intergenerational educational mobility, and labor market outcomes among women in Turkey. Our empirical strategy addresses a well-known identification problem where women’s years of schooling are endogenous to individual characteristics. The Law took effect in 1997, whereby girls born before January …

Trade And Health Linkages: A Global Panel Data Analysis Using The Gravity Model, Pallavi Panda

School of Business

This paper provides empirical evidence on the effect of trade openness on child health using the data from 171 countries between the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. Using an instrumental variable approach with a geographic gravity model framework, this study finds that a 1% increase in openness leads to a 0.2% decrease in infant mortality rates across countries, which at the sample mean is about 8 infant deaths per 1000 live births. The result is robust to country-specific time-invariant heterogeneity as well as outliers. The main channels of operation seem to be through increasing incomes, increasing health expenditures, and decreasing inequality.

Do Rural Health Worker Incentive Schemes Work? Evidence From Thailand, Pallavi Panda, Pasita Chaijaroen

School of Business

This paper studies supply-side health interventions, which increased the monetary incentives and number of health professionals in the Deep South provinces of Thailand, and provides evidence on the effectiveness of provision of primary care providers on the health care utilization of the community. We use a difference-in-differences approach to estimate effects of this policy on child health by evaluating the probability of immunizations in the policy affected areas using two rounds of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS). We find that after the policy implementation, there is a decrease in immunizations that are given to children within 2 months and …

Estimating Predictors Of Mental Well-Being Through Analysis Of Children’S Drawings: The Case Of Syrian Refugees, Stephanie Smith

Master's Theses

There are currently over 65 million individuals that have been forcibly displaced globally. The cumulative trauma that comes from the refugee experience and exposure to violence has proven to have long-term negative psychological outcomes and thus negative impacts on human capital in the long run. Given that over 50% percent of the global refugee population are children, the ability to efficiently and accurately assess their mental well-being is of critical importance. Using data from over 2000 refugee children in Jordan, I use machine learning techniques to find key predictors of psychological distress, PTSD, and exposure to violence found in children’s …

The Effect Of Sex Of Firstborn Children On Attitudes Towards Intimate Partner Violence, Shuvam Rizal

Master's Theses

What are the different ways in which one’s life is influenced by the sex of their children? Is there an effect on how they view Intimate Partner Violence? If so, is there a difference in how the male parent is affected by the sex of his child than the female parent? Bodies of conflicting Social Sciences literature suggest having a daughter makes one both more and less likely to engage in Intimate Partner Violence. In this paper, I approach this question through the use of a Linear Probability Fixed-Effects model on Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) datasets, using data from the …

Does Trade Reduce Infant Mortality? Evidence From Sub-Saharan Africa, Pallavi Panda

School of Business

Trade can affect the development process of a country via various direct and indirect mechanisms. Empirically, it is difficult to identify causal effects, as trade is likely to be endogenous to other socio-economic factors that also affect development. To overcome this problem, this study uses a trade policy experiment called the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which conferred many sub-Saharan African countries largely duty-free and quota-free access to US markets. Using retrospective birth histories from Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), I develop a large micro panel dataset that spans 30 sub-Saharan African countries and carry out a within-mother variation …

A Contemporary Tale Of Two Countries - State Of Children In India And Pakistan, Arijit Ray

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Some common economic problems of the Indian subcontinent are its low per-capita income, major dependence on agriculture, heavy population pressure, chronic unemployment, slow capital formation, limited opportunity for human capital development, rising pollution, and heavy inequality in the wealth distribution. Each of these problems affects its children in its unique way, both directly and indirectly. However, some problems are human-made which directly affect its own existence. I focus on two countries in the Indian subcontinent: India and Pakistan, where such problems exist. In both societies, female children are valued less than male children, a common theme across many other countries …

How We Value Future Generations, Elias Connors Dorf

Senior Projects Fall 2020

This project examines how we value future generations. From looking at different ways we value future and present wellbeing we are able to see a tension that arises from having a high value on both. When looking at examples of ways we value future wellbeing we can see that if you value future wellbeing highly it will devalue current wellbeing. Then we look for a justification for valuing one over the other. This leads us into two ways of how we justify valuing either valuation of wellbeing and a discussion of the average and the classical principles of utility. We …

Better Understanding Human Capital In West Virginia, Christiadi, John Deskins

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

No abstract provided.

Essays On Macroeconomic Analysis Of Development, Nazmul Islam

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes three essays on empirical studies of macroeconomic analysis of development. The first and second chapter focus on defining different categories of households based on the type of wealth they hold, deriving their demographic characteristics and how they react to transitory income shocks. The economics literature splits households into poor hand-to-mouth (P-HtM), wealthy hand-to-mouth (W-HtM), and not hand-to-mouth (N-HtM). This breakdown is important to accurately capture how different categories of households react to income shocks.

In Chapter 1, I argue that this classification is missing important features related to the behavior of indebted households. Thus, novel in the …

Are Menstrual Cycles A Biological Determinant Of Well-Being Amongst Sierra Leonean Schoolchildren?, Ashwini Shridhar

Master's Theses

The influence of hormones and biology on behavior is a topic that is rife with controversy, especially when it comes to sexual hormones. There is even more murkiness when it comes to the topic of menstruation and knowledge about women’s menstrual cycles. Recent research on this topic have seen a link between the hormonal fluctuations during menstrual cycles and various behavioral implications on competition, cooperation, and risk behavior. This study tries to expand existing knowledge by examining whether there is a link between hormonal fluctuations during menstrual cycles and risk preferential behavior using economic experiments in the largely understudied context …

The Economics Of Weight Loss, Shivani Pandey

Undergraduate Economic Review

Obesity is now being considered one of the biggest health concerns globally. Ironically, while India records the largest no. of underweight population in the world along with China, it has also been placed in the top five countries in terms of obesity as per a new study by the Lancet Journal. Obesity entails various direct and indirect costs in terms of lower productivity and higher medical expenditure and has the potential to lower economic growth. This paper analyses the need for strengthening government regulations in the weight loss industry. After analyzing the causes of obesity and its negative effects on …