Putting “almost no stock” in a self-reported measurement which is fairly well correlated with measures like good health, income etc. seems like a strong response, but responding to that might be too long for this thread!
GDP per capita is also strongly correlated with all of those things… but yes it’s a bit long of a discussion for this, see some comments here for a good discussion.
There are a couple of papers showing that disease eradication has real but quantitatively small effects on income. (Acemoglu and Johnson 2007, Bleakley 2007, Bleakley 2010) They are severely problematic in many ways but they are the best evidence we have and they don’t point to large effects. So health interventions are just not that promising in that regard. I plan to elaborate on this argument in the final post of my growth series… some day...
Edit: I should note that Bleakley is more positive than me in his interpretation, but I think the effect sizes are just not large and certainly wouldn’t survive any skeptical adjustments downwards (of which many are warranted)
Thanks so much that’s great. And yeah I commented on that thread a bunch :D :D :D.
I’m interested in what attracts you to the impact of eradication on economic growth as the best evidence we have. Intuitively it seems to me like not a great case study, as moving from low malaria prevalence to eradication may only improve productivity for a small percentage of people who were getting malaria. Anywhere where malaria has been “eradicated”, seems unlikely to have had malaria as a massive economic issue in the 30 yeas before eradication.
Wheras Here in a Ugandan town though with high prevalence where most people get sick with malaria every year I would say, even with nets and prompt treatment, it really seems to affect productivity and motivation. Also malaria causes anemia and iron deficiency which obviously can reduce productivity in the long term.
There’s a bit of research on malaria and economic burden as well, but obviously. The systemic review below is interesting, it seems like it has potential be a fairly big deal on a number of measures including catastrophic expenditure for families, absenteeism, even GDP loss. Obviously those are very much proxys (and you could argue some aren’t even that) for economic growth but at least they can be robustly measured.
The systemic review below is interesting, it seems like it has potential be a fairly big deal on a number of measures including catastrophic expenditure for families, absenteeism, even GDP loss.
Most studies in this space are just correlational, and having high burden of malaria is obviously correlated with lots of bad things—that doesn’t tell us anything meaningful. For example, being poor could cause countries to be unable to deal with malaria, and also cause all those bad things. It looks like the systematic review is also correlational. The studies I linked are the only ones I know of that have a quasi-experimental approach, which is why I lean on them.
as moving from low malaria prevalence to eradication may only improve productivity for a small percentage of people who were getting malaria. Anywhere where malaria has been “eradicated”, seems unlikely to have had malaria as a massive economic issue in the 30 yeas before eradication.
Broadly I don’t think this is true. DDT was an incredibly powerful anti-malarial tool and caused near-eradication even in places with quite high burdens. Malaria has always been endemic to the Americas and my impression is that DDT is the reason it’s mostly gone, though it’s still a real public health problem in e.g. Brazil.
even with nets and prompt treatment, it really seems to affect productivity and motivation.
I’m sure this is true, but the productivity and motivation of individual workers isn’t the big constraint on growth. A lack of jobs, mobility frictions, inability to invest in growing firms, etc—so even if you made every worker able to 2x their working hours because of better health, that would have <<2x impact on GDP.
GDP per capita is also strongly correlated with all of those things… but yes it’s a bit long of a discussion for this, see some comments here for a good discussion.
There are a couple of papers showing that disease eradication has real but quantitatively small effects on income. (Acemoglu and Johnson 2007, Bleakley 2007, Bleakley 2010) They are severely problematic in many ways but they are the best evidence we have and they don’t point to large effects. So health interventions are just not that promising in that regard. I plan to elaborate on this argument in the final post of my growth series… some day...
Edit: I should note that Bleakley is more positive than me in his interpretation, but I think the effect sizes are just not large and certainly wouldn’t survive any skeptical adjustments downwards (of which many are warranted)
Thanks so much that’s great. And yeah I commented on that thread a bunch :D :D :D.
I’m interested in what attracts you to the impact of eradication on economic growth as the best evidence we have. Intuitively it seems to me like not a great case study, as moving from low malaria prevalence to eradication may only improve productivity for a small percentage of people who were getting malaria. Anywhere where malaria has been “eradicated”, seems unlikely to have had malaria as a massive economic issue in the 30 yeas before eradication.
Wheras Here in a Ugandan town though with high prevalence where most people get sick with malaria every year I would say, even with nets and prompt treatment, it really seems to affect productivity and motivation. Also malaria causes anemia and iron deficiency which obviously can reduce productivity in the long term.
There’s a bit of research on malaria and economic burden as well, but obviously. The systemic review below is interesting, it seems like it has potential be a fairly big deal on a number of measures including catastrophic expenditure for families, absenteeism, even GDP loss. Obviously those are very much proxys (and you could argue some aren’t even that) for economic growth but at least they can be robustly measured.
https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-022-04303-6
Most studies in this space are just correlational, and having high burden of malaria is obviously correlated with lots of bad things—that doesn’t tell us anything meaningful. For example, being poor could cause countries to be unable to deal with malaria, and also cause all those bad things. It looks like the systematic review is also correlational. The studies I linked are the only ones I know of that have a quasi-experimental approach, which is why I lean on them.
Broadly I don’t think this is true. DDT was an incredibly powerful anti-malarial tool and caused near-eradication even in places with quite high burdens. Malaria has always been endemic to the Americas and my impression is that DDT is the reason it’s mostly gone, though it’s still a real public health problem in e.g. Brazil.
I’m sure this is true, but the productivity and motivation of individual workers isn’t the big constraint on growth. A lack of jobs, mobility frictions, inability to invest in growing firms, etc—so even if you made every worker able to 2x their working hours because of better health, that would have <<2x impact on GDP.