The impact of health on poverty: Evidence from the South African integrated family survey

This paper examines the impact of health status on poverty status, accounting for the endogeneity of health status. Using exogenous measures of health status from the South African Integrated Health Survey, we instrument for health status while allowing for covariation among the unobservables influencing both health and household poverty status. Health status, as captured by the body mass index, is shown to strongly influence poverty status. Households that contain more unhealthy individuals are 60% more likely to be income poor than households that contain fewer unhealthy individuals, and this finding appears invariant to the choice of poverty line.

Social networks and academic achievement : a study of a South African university

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 28-30)

Three Essays on Job-Trainee and Employee Behavior: Experimental Evidence from Malawi.

In the first chapter I examine the relationship between employment risk and job seeker performance. To induce exogenous variation in employment risk, I randomize outside options for job seekers undergoing a real recruitment process. I do this by assigning job seekers a 0, 1, 5, 50, 75 or 100 percent chance of real alternative employment of the same duration and wage as the jobs for which they are applying. I find that job seeker performance is highest and effort is lowest among those assigned the lowest employment risk (a guaranteed alternative job), and performance is lowest and effort highest among those facing the highest employment risk (those without any job guarantee). My findings are consistent with a framework that ties together insights from economics and psychology; performance is an increasing function of effort and an inverse u-shaped function of stress. In the second chapter I exploit the experiment used in chapter one and estimate the employment and wage effects of a short term job. I find the following key results. First, there is a 10.6 to 13.9 percentage point increase in average employment during the eight months following the job. Second, there is a sizeable increase in wages. Individuals earn approximately 60 to 67 percent more per day. There is suggestive evidence that individuals are switching into different occupations particularly clerical and related work away from agricultural based activities. Lastly, the estimated returns to the job are larger among those who perform worst on a high stakes numeracy and literacy test. In the third chapter, examines corrupt behavior by interviewer employees working on short term contracts in a developing country. Specifically, I measure how employees change the extent to which they steal from the firm in response to varying degrees of monitoring in the work force. I find that decreasing the monitoring rate by ten percentage points increases the likelihood of money being stolen by approximately four percentage points; and the amount stolen by between five and eight percent on baseline theft. I also observe the relationship between the monitoring rate and employee crime to be non-linear.PHDPublic Policy and EconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100021/1/susgod_1.pd

Unisexual reproduction in Huntiella moniliformis

Sexual reproduction in fungi is controlled by genes present at the mating type (MAT) locus, which typically harbors transcription factors that influence the expression of many sex-related genes. The MAT locus exists as two alternative idiomorphs in ascomycetous fungi and sexual reproduction is initiated when genes from both idiomorphs are expressed. Thus, the gene content of this locus determines whether a fungus is heterothallic (self-sterile) or homothallic (self-fertile). Recently, a unique sub-class of homothallism has been described in fungi, where individuals possessing a single MAT idiomorph can reproduce sexually in the absence of a partner. Using various mycological, molecular and bioinformatic techniques, we investigated the sexual strategies and characterized the MAT loci in two tree wound-infecting fungi, Huntiella moniliformis and Huntiella omanensis. H. omanensis was shown to exhibit a typically heterothallic sexual reproductive cycle, with isolates possessing either the MAT1-1 or MAT1-2 idiomorph. This was in contrast to the homothallism via unisexual reproduction that was shown in H. moniliformis, where only the MAT1-2-1 gene was present in sexually reproducing cultures. While the evolutionary benefit and mechanisms underpinning a unisexual mating strategy remain unknown, it could have evolved to minimize the costs, while retaining the benefits, of normal sexual reproduction.University of Pretoria, the Department of Science and Technology (DST)/National Research Foundation (NRF) Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology and the Genomics Research Institute (University of Pretoria Institutional Research Theme) and the National Research Foundation of South Africa. specific unique reference number (UID) 83924).http://www.elsevier.com/locate/yfgbi2016-07-31hb201

Homelessness and Crime: Do Your Friends Matter?

This paper investigates the influence of friends on crime, using data I collected among the homeless. To estimate the causal effects of friends and of the share of criminal friends on crime, I rely on two instruments. The first is the share of rainy days during one's first year as homeless: rainfall fosters homeless's concentration in sheltered places and increases the probability of interactions. The second is the share of inmates released during one's first year as homeless, which a\ua4ects the supply of criminal friends. I find that one additional friend decreases the probability of incarceration but criminal friends increases it

Chronic and structural poverty in South Africa: Challenges for action and research

Ten years after liberation, the persistence of poverty is one of the most important and urgent problems facing South Africa. This paper reflects on some of the findings based on research undertaken as part of the participation of the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape in the work of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), situates it within the broader literature on poverty in South Africa, and considers some emergent challenges. Although PLAAS’s survey, being only the first wave of a panel study, does not yet cast light on short term poverty dynamics, it illuminates key aspects of the structural conditions that underpin long-term poverty: the close interactions between asset poverty, employment-vulnerability and subjection to unequal social power relations. Coming to grips with these dynamics requires going beyond the limitations of conventional ‘sustainable livelihoods’ analyses; and functionalist analyses of South African labour markets. The paper argues for a re-engagement with the traditions of critical sociology, anthropology and the theoretical conventions that allow a closer exploration of the political economy of chronic poverty at micro and macro level

Evaluating prevention strategies used by general practitioners in Grahamstown in terms of recommended guidelines

Thesis (MMed)--Stellenbosch University, 2009.Background: Increasing attention has been paid to preventative health over the past few decades. However because of constraints on consultation time and medical funds general practitioners (GPs) are often unsure which measures are appropriate and when to carry them out. They need to be well informed about the cost-effectiveness and evidence regarding each preventative measure to help their patients make informed choices about what needs to be done. Due to the large number of recommended screening measures general practitioners are often unsure which to prioritise and also forget to carry out all recommended measures. Recommendations for screening in South Africa and research into preventive strategies used by general practitioners are lacking. This research attempts to find out whether the prevention strategies used by general practitioners in private practice in Grahamstown follow recommended guidelines. Methods: To obtain a broad understanding of prevention strategies used by general practitioners in Grahamstown, the following tracer conditions were selected for the study: screening for smoking, breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, hyperlipidaemia, prostate cancer and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Research on routine annual health checks was included as these are used by many GPs to screen for tracer conditions. The research was done in 2 parts: 1. Review of the literature to obtain evidence on the recommended prevention strategy for each of the selected tracer conditions and 2. Interviews with GPs to evaluate the prevention strategy they used for each tracer condition. The literature was reviewed for evidence on the following parameters for each tracer condition: burden of the disease prevented; cost-effectiveness of the screening measures; sensitivity and specificity of screening tests; whether the screening measure for and treatment of the tracer condition is acceptable to patients; appropriate duration between repeated screening tests and whether there is effective treatment for the tracer condition. Eleven general practitioners were interviewed on the prevention strategies they use for each of the selected tracer conditions. Transcriptions of the interviews were analysed qualitatively and qualitatively. The prevention strategies used by the general practitioners was then compared to recommended guidelines. Results: Evidence from the literature regarding the burden of and optimal prevention strategy for each tracer condition is reported. Using this evidence an appropriate prevention strategy for each tracer condition is outlined. The prevention strategies used by the GPs for each tracer condition and the routine annual health check is reported from the analysis of the interviews. The results show a wide range of differing strategies used by the GPs, often not following recommendations from research. Discussion: The prevention strategies used by general practitioners for each tracer condition is compared with the recommendations from the literature. Important differences between what are recommended and what general practitioners are doing is discussed. Some general practitioners are practicing largely curative medicine and are not adequately screening their patients. Others are over screening with too many unnecessary tests being done annually as a routine. The interviews reveal that generally GPs do not discuss the potential harms and limitations of screening tests with their patients; do not keep check lists for each patient and do not use registers or recall systems to ensure all screening is done. Conclusion: General practitioners need to ensure their prevention strategies follow recommended guidelines. To do so they can use the routine annual health check or opportunistic case finding and prevention. They need to ensure that routine health checks are targeted to the individual patients’ health risks and avoid doing unnecessary tests. Check lists can help to ensure all screening is done on every patient. While registers and recall systems improve screening rates they are not always possible in busy general practices. Recommended prevention strategies for each of the tracer conditions are made

Employment risk and job-seeker performance

This paper examines the relationship between employment risk and job-seeker performance. To induce exogenous variation in employment risk, the outside options for job seekers undergoing a real recruitment process were randomized by assigning them a 0, 1, 5, 50, 75, or 100 percent chance of real alternative employment of the same duration and wage as the jobs for which they were applying. The findings show that job-seeker performance is highest and effort is lowest among those assigned the lowest employment risk (a guaranteed alternative job), and performance is lowest and effort highest among those facing the highest employment risk (those without any job guarantee). Moreover, a nonlinear relationship exists between employment risk and performance.Non-PRIFPRI1; Subtheme 2.1; C Improving markets and tradeMTI

Responding to risk: Circumcision, information, and HIV prevention

PRIFPRI3; ISI; DCA; B Promoting healthy food systems; C Improving markets and tradeMTI