Income and malaria: Evidence from an agricultural intervention in Uganda

We exploit a spatial discontinuity in the coverage of an agricultural extension program in Uganda to causally identify its effects on malaria. We find that eligibility for the program reduced the incidence of malaria by 8.8 percentage points, with children and pregnant women experiencing most of these improvements. An examination of the underlying mechanisms indicates that an increase in income and the resulting increase in the ownership and usage of bednets is the most likely candidate driving these effects. Taken together, these results signify the importance of liquidity constraints in investments for malaria prevention and the potential role that agricultural development can play in easing it

Prediction of Global Solar Radiation in India using Artificial Neural Network

Increasing global warming and decreasing fossil fuel reserves have necessitated the use of renewable energy resources like solar energy in India. To maximize returns on a solar farm, it has to be set up at a place with high solar radiation. The solar radiation values are available only for a small number of places and must be interpolated for the rest. This paper utilizes Artificial Neural Network (ANN) in interpolation, by obtaining a function with input as combinations of 7 geographical and meteorological parameters affecting radiation, and output as Global Solar Radiation (GSR). Data considered was of past 9 years for 13 Indian cities. Low values of error and high values of coefficient of determination thus obtained, verified that the results were accurate in terms of the original solar radiation data known. Thus, ANN can be used to interpolate the solar radiation for the places of interest depending on the availability of the data

Coffee price volatility and intra-household labour supply: Evidence from Viet Nam

Volatility in commodity markets poses an acute risk to farmers in developing countries who rely on cash crop agriculture. We combine a time series of international coffee prices with a long-running panel on coffee-growing households in Viet Nam to investigate coping mechanisms employed by farmers in a transitioning economy. We find that households cope with lower coffee prices by increasing wage labour of adults with children and adolescents substituting for adults on the farm and in home production. Account should be taken of this finding in formulating and implementing social protection and inclusive growth policies

Alteration of cardiovascular autonomic activity in type 2 diabetes mellitus

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a clinical syndrome characterized by hyperglycaemia due to absolute or relative insulin deficiency. Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) invokes potentially life-threatening outcomes especially in poorly controlled diabetic patients. This study was to evaluate the prevalence of CAN in diabetic patients and its relationship with QTc interval.Methods: This observational study of two year duration was included total 123 patients of more than 30 (thirty) years and up to 60 (sixty) years of age who were presented with diabetic mellitus (DM) those were evaluated for CAN using four distinct clinical tests-Resting heart rate (RHR), test for orthostatic hypotension (OH), hand gripping test (HGT) and QTc interval on ECG. Data were analyzed with statistical package for social sciences (SPSS), version 23.Results: The mean age of all 103 studied patients was 48.94±8.69 years; Mostly patients belong to 50-60 years of age and the majority was males (69.0%). Out of 103 72.8% patients were reported with CAN (51 males and 24 females) and without CAN were 27.2.0% (20 males and 8 females), 36% of patients of Definite Parasympathetic neuropathy, 25% Normal and 20% of Sympathetic neuropathic patients. HbA1c level increases the danger of CAN also. QTc interval is a reliable indicator for the presence of CAN.Conclusions: Duration of diabetes is directly proportional to the prevalence of CAN. Various cardiac autonomic function tests detect CAN

Corruption and mental health:Evidence from Vietnam

While there is substantial corruption in developing countries, the costs imposed by corruption on individuals and households are little understood. This study examines the relationship between exposure to local corruption and mental health, as measured by depressive symptoms. We use two large data sets - one cross-sectional and one panel - collected across rural Vietnam. After controlling for individual and regional characteristics, we find strong and consistent evidence that day-to-day petty corruption is positively associated with psychological distress. Our results are robust to a variety of specification checks. Further, we find that the relationship between corruption and mental health is stronger for women, and that there are no heterogeneous effects by poverty status. Finally, using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, we provide suggestive evidence that a recent highly proled anti-corruption campaign had significant positive effects on mental health. Overall, our findings suggest that there may be substantial psychosocial and mental health benefits from efforts to reduce corruption and improve rural governance structures

Can gender differences in distributional preferences explain gender gaps in competition?

We design an experiment to examine whether egalitarian preferences, and in particular, behindness aversion as well as preference for favourable inequality affect competitive choices differently among males and females. We find that selection into competitive environments is: (a) negatively related to egalitarian preferences, with smaller negative impacts of being egalitarian on females' choice of the tournament wage scheme, and (b) negatively associated with behindness aversion and positively related to preference for favourable inequality, with significant gender differences in the impact of these distributional preferences. Once we allow for the impact of distributional preferences, behavioural, personality, and socioeconomic characteristics to vary by gender, the pure gender effect is explained away. We find that gender gaps in distributional preferences along with selected personality traits are the most relevant explanations for gender differences in willingness to compete. This is an important result as these characteristics are per se malleable and amenable to policy interventions

Caste differences in behaviour and personality: Evidence from India

The persistent gap in economic outcomes between the upper and lower caste groups in India is typically explained through differences in endowments and the presence of discrimination. While there is sizable literature that examines caste gaps in physical and intellectual human capital, this paper contributes to a small literature that evaluates caste differentials in behavioural preferences and personality traits that are possibly associated with the persistent economic gap between these castes. Using data from experiments and surveys conducted among a large sample of Indian undergraduate students, we find significant caste differences in behaviour and personality such that Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes are less likely to be endowed with the behavioural preferences and personality traits that tend to affect educational attainment, labour market performance, and overall wellbeing positively. Our results have implications for revising the focus of current caste-based policy formulations

Assessment of heavy metal contamination in Kali river, Uttar Pradesh, India

The River Kali is an important surface water body in the western Uttar Pradesh (U.P). It is an intermittent river which flows throughout the monsoonal months. The present study aims to assess the heavy metal contamination in the river Kali using pollution index (PI), based on five heavy metals (Fe, Zn, Cd, Pb, and Cr) during pre and post monsoon seasons in the year 2014. The PI evaluated during pre and post monsoon seasons with respect to drinking water quality standards was found as 5.04 and 7.08 respectively, while related to inland water quality standards were found as 4.37 and 3.62, respectively. The results indicate that the river Kali was severely contaminated (PI>3) in both seasons. Therefore, water of Kali River is not fit for drinking as well as for agriculture purposes

Cognitive, socioemotional, and behavioural returns to college quality

We exploit the variation in the admissions process across colleges of a leading Indian university to estimate the causal effects of enrolling in a selective college on: cognitive attainment using scores on standardized university exams; behavioural preferences such as risk, competitiveness, and overconfidence; and socioemotional traits using measures of Big Five personality. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that enrolling in a selective college leads to improvements in females' exam scores with no effect on males' scores. Marginally admitted females in selective colleges become less overconfident and less risk averse as compared to their counterparts in the less selective colleges. Males in selective colleges experience a decline in extraversion and conscientiousness. We find higher attendance rates among females to be one of the likely channels explaining the gender differences in returns to better college and peer environment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper in the literature to go beyond cognitive outcomes, to causally identify the returns to college quality on both behavioural and socioemotional traits