A competing risk model for health and food insecurity in the West Bank

This paper explores the interactions between the risk of food insecurity and the decision to health insure in the Palestinian Territories. The risk of adverse health conditions is insurable; the risk of food insecurity is a background risk and no market insurance exists. The vulnerability to food insecurity influences the individual utility from health insuring. We present a competing risk model to reveal this interdependence. We specify the empirical model as a bivariate probit model and evaluate the impact of food insecurity on the household decision to health insure. We find evidence of significant complementarity between the risk of food insecurity and the propensity to health insure. The predicted conditional probabilities reveal that the propensity to health insure is higher in presence of food insecurity among Palestinian households. This study shows that, in presence of a background risk, there are complementarities among risks that policy should be mindful of

A Competing Risk Model for Health and Food Insecurity in the West Bank

This paper explores the interactions between the risk of food insecurity and the decision to health insure in the Palestinian Territories. The risk of adverse health conditions is insurable; the risk of food insecurity is a background risk and no market insurance exists. The vulnerability to food insecurity influences the individual utility from health insuring. We present a competing risk model to reveal this interdependence. We specify the empirical model as a bivariate probit model and evaluate the impact of food insecurity on the household decision to health insure. We find evidence of significant complementarity between the risk of food insecurity and the propensity to health insure. The predicted conditional probabilities reveal that the propensity to health insure is higher in presence of food insecurity among Palestinian households. This study shows that, in presence of a background risk, there are complementarities among risks that policy should be mindful of.Food insecurity; Health insurance; Competing risks; Bivariate Probit

Measuring ambiguity preferences: a new ambiguity preference survey module

Ambiguity preferences are important to explain human decision-making in many areas in economics and finance. To measure individual ambiguity preferences, the experimental economics literature advocates using incentivized laboratory experiments. Yet, laboratory experiments are costly, time-consuming and require substantial administrative effort. This study develops an experimentally validated ambiguity preference survey module that can reliably measure ambiguity preferences when carrying out laboratory experiments is impractical. This toolkit may have wide applications, including end-of-session lab questionnaires, large scale surveys and financial client assessments

An analysis of changing Israeli and Palestinian attitudes towards peace

A unique time series dataset is interrogated to show that among both Israelis and Palestinians support for peace negotiations was the majority view between 2000 and 2016, with an average of 73% and 65% support respectively. Yet since then, support is waning and in both populations the belief that a lasting peace would arise from peace negotiations is much lower at 35%. Distinct cohort effects exist with the 1990s birth cohort in Palestine (Israel) having up to 15% (15%) lower support for peace negotiations and 20% (10%) lower belief that they will lead to lasting peace, compared to the 1980s cohort at the same age. While we cannot claim causality, the 90s cohort effect is associated with their unique experience of violence and political turmoil in their younger years (the Second Intifada, two Gaza wars, the Lebanon war, the breakdown of negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh), in line with empirical literature on the persistent effect of violence experienced as a young person on attitudes, beliefs and behaviour as an adult. Younger cohorts’ experiences will be an important determinant of overall support for peace in the future and the prospects for peace in the region

Social Learning with Partial and Aggregate Information: Experimental Evidence

In our information cascade experiments, we study social learning in decision-making situations in which decisions “not to do” are unobservable. Subjects, in sequence, choose whether to invest or not, without knowing their position. They observe a private signal and the number of investments made by their predecessors, but not how many predecessors have chosen not to invest. We find that down cascades, in which agents neglect the signal and do not invest, occur, in contrast with the equilibrium predictions. Up cascades, in which agents invest independently of the signal, occur, but less than in equilibrium

Factor models in panels with cross-sectional dependence: an application to the extended SIPRI military expenditure data

Strategic interactions between countries, such as arms races, alliances and wider economic and political shocks, can induce strong cross-sectional dependence in panel data models of military expenditure. If the assumption of cross-sectional independence fails, standard panel estimators such as fixed or random effects can lead to misleading inference. This paper shows how to improve estimation of dynamic, heterogenous, panel models of the demand for military expenditure allowing for cross-sectional dependence in errors using two approaches: Principal Components and Common Correlated Effect estimators. Our results show that it is crucial to allow for cross-sectional dependence, that the bulk of the effect is regional and there are large gains in fit by allowing for both dynamics and between country heterogeneity in models of the demand for military expenditures

3rd Annual Conference of the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH), Developing methods in agriculture and health research, London, 13–14 June 2013

Non-PRIFPRI3; ISI; CRP4; B Promoting healthy food systemsPHND; A4NHCGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH

Explaining Cross-State Disparities in Child Nutrition in Rural India

SummaryWhat drives the large disparities in height-for-age distributions among Indian states - variation in observed nutrition-related endowments, such as wealth or maternal education, or differential strengths of relationships across states between endowments and height-for-age? We explore this question by comparing a set of states with poor nutrition outcomes with the benchmark of Tamil Nadu, a good performer. Applying counterfactual decomposition methods to National Family Health Survey data, we find that surprisingly modest proportions of HAZ differences are attributable to endowment differences. We discuss our results in light of the superior track record of food and nutrition policies in Tamil Nadu