The Impact of Corruption on Economic Development of Bangladesh:Evidence on the Basis of an Extended Solow Model

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the long run relationship between economic growth and corruption in Bangladesh over the period 1984-2008. In this study, I have extended the neoclassical model of economic growth by Solow (1956) including human capital and public sector explicitly at first. Then, I have incorporated corruption into the augmented model using a specific functional form for total factor productivity and three other channels to show impact of corruption on real GDP per capita. To investigate empirically the existence of a long run relationship or co-integration between corruption and real GDP per capita, I have used Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds Test method. The results of co-integration test confirms that there is a long run relation among corruption, GDP per capita and other determinants of GDP over the study period. The long run estimates indicate that corruption has direct negative impact on per capita GDP i.e. economic development of Bangladesh.ARDL Bounds test; Co-Integration; Corruption; Economic Growth; Neoclassical Model

Horizontal equity in the Australian healthcare system : exploring the unknowns and updating the knowns

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Business.Australia has a tax-funded universal health insurance system known as Medicare, which aims to ensure universal and equitable use of healthcare services. This thesis assesses the fairness of the Australian healthcare system in delivering healthcare services during the period of encouraging greater private healthcare financing. This thesis first measures the degree of horizontal inequity (unequal care for equal need) in eight indicators of healthcare use between 2011-12 and 2014-15. Secondly, it examines inequity in GP and specialist visit by making a distinction between the probability of visit and the conditional visit. Thirdly, this thesis investigates how co-payment is related to area-level socioeconomic inequality in Medicare-funded specialist care by using national administrative data. Finally, it measures and explains inequity in use of healthcare services within the non-remote Indigenous Australians. The overall finding is that there was pro-rich inequity in use of out-of-hospital services while the utilisation of hospital-related services was almost equitable. There was a small degree of pro-rich inequity in the probability of GP visits, but significant pro-poor inequity in conditional visits to GP. On the contrary, there was considerable inequity in the probability of visiting a specialist favouring richer people. The distribution of conditional visits for this care was almost equitable, but it appears to be pro-rich when higher users were excluded from the analysis. Income, private health insurance, and education significantly accounted for pro-rich inequity while the contribution of concession card to inequity was pro-poor. The analysis of Medicare Benefit Schedule (MBS) data shows that inequality in specialist services was favourable to the individuals living in socioeconomically advantaged areas. Most importantly, this inequality was higher for visits with co-payment while there was almost no inequality in visits without co-payment. Finally, there was no evidence of inequity in the utilisation of GP services and inpatient admission within the Indigenous Australians. However, wealthier Indigenous Australians were higher users of specialist services than their poorer counterparts despite having similar levels of need. Pro-rich inequity in specialist services suggests the need for policy discussions to reform Medicare safety net arrangements so that poorer people have a chance to access larger benefits. Policy reforms should ensure that Medicare serves financially vulnerable and sicker people equitably

Revisiting Health and Income Inequality Relationship:Evidence from Developing Countries

In general, countries with more equal income distribution generally enjoy better health. Earlier empirical studies on the relationship between income distribution and health at country level present strong evidence that income inequality on an average impedes the improvement of population health. However, a majority of these empirical studies are based on data from either only developed countries or pooled data from developing and developed countries. They mainly study the relationship at a single point of time or at an average of several years. These studies also fail to control for country specific unobserved heterogeneity. Departing from the general trend of current literature, this paper examines the health-income inequality hypothesis using panel data from 31 low income and low middle income countries for the period of 1982-2002. The results from the simple pooled OLS analysis indicate that health and income inequality is negatively related in these countries. This finding is in line with the most of the earlier cross country studies. However, application of fixed effects and random effects model to control country specific heterogeneity provides contradictory results. In other words, my findings from this study confirm that there is a positive relation between health and income distribution in this set of developing countries over this period

Revisiting Health and Income Inequality Relationship:Evidence from Developing Countries

In general, countries with more equal income distribution generally enjoy better health. Earlier empirical studies on the relationship between income distribution and health at country level present strong evidence that income inequality on an average impedes the improvement of population health. However, a majority of these empirical studies are based on data from either only developed countries or pooled data from developing and developed countries. They mainly study the relationship at a single point of time or at an average of several years. These studies also fail to control for country specific unobserved heterogeneity. Departing from the general trend of current literature, this paper examines the health-income inequality hypothesis using panel data from 31 low income and low middle income countries for the period of 1982-2002. The results from the simple pooled OLS analysis indicate that health and income inequality is negatively related in these countries. This finding is in line with the most of the earlier cross country studies. However, application of fixed effects and random effects model to control country specific heterogeneity provides contradictory results. In other words, my findings from this study confirm that there is a positive relation between health and income distribution in this set of developing countries over this period

Horizontal inequity in healthcare utilisation within the Indigenous Australians

The objective of this study is to examine and measure the extent of income-related horizontal inequity (unequal use of healthcare services for equal medical need) among the Indigenous Australians. This study also aims to understand the role of different socioeconomic factors in explaining the degree and direction of inequity

Fiscal Capacity, Democratic Institutions and Social Welfare Outcomes in Developing Countries

The purpose of this paper is to gauge the various determinants of social sector spending captured by social protection and education spending in a cross section of developing countries, a subject on which there is scant empirical evidence. We hypothesize that fiscal capacity is necessary but not sufficient for resource allocation in this area, because the political will to do so must also be present. Using a panel data instrumental variable approach, we find that greater fiscal capacity robustly raises social spending in developing countries in the period 1990 to 2010. It is also strongly evident that rising democratisation enhances social sector spending; the presence of greater democracy and higher fiscal capacity could reinforce this effect. Our work also innovatively incorporates inequality into the analysis, finding that social expenditure is greater in more egalitarian societies. Military expenditure also appears to crowd out social protection expenditure, but not robustl

Revisiting the role of the resource curse in shaping institutions and growth

This paper examines the effect of natural resource dependence on growth in a cross-country setting during 1970 to 2010, first accounting for the effect of resource export dependence on institutional development. We employ several political and governance indicators, numerous econometric techniques on two separate panels, including one post-cold war. Our findings suggest there is a resource curse adversely effecting growth via institutional deterioration in the longer term (1970-2010), but recently (1995-2012) there is a reversal of this adverse effect on some institutions. Moreover, certain institutions matter more for growth, including governance and constraints on the executive relative to democracy

Couple’s reports of household decision-making, unmet need for contraception, and unintended pregnancy in Bangladesh

Introduction: Previous researches emphasize the role of wife’s sole contribution in household decision-makings as predictor of family planning and reproductive health behaviors in many developing countries. These studies tend to overlook how couple’s joint decision-making may promote better reproductive health outcomes than any partner’s sole decision-makings which lack input or agreement from other partner in a marital relationship. Using married couple’s matched responses in decision-making questions; this study examines the association between couples’ concordant and discordant decision-makings, and wife’s unmet need for contraception and unintended pregnancy in Bangladesh. Methods: This study used couple’s dataset (n= 3336) of Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey of 2007. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the likelihood of unmet need for contraception, and unintended pregnancy among married women of reproductive age. Findings: Study findings reveal that there are substantial levels of both concordance and discordance in responses to household decision-making items. Results from logistic regression analyses suggest that compared to couple’s joint decision making, husband-only or wife-only decision-making is associated with higher risk for women in having both unmet need for contraception and unintended pregnancy. Regression results also indicate that unmet need for contraception and unintended pregnancy are lower among women with lower parity, women from relatively richer households, and women heard family planning messages on television. Conclusion: As couple’s joint decision-making is significantly associated with better reproductive outcomes, policy makers may promote community based outreach programs, and communication campaigns for family planning focusing on egalitarian gender role approach

Couple’s reports of household decision-making, unmet need for contraception, and unintended pregnancy in Bangladesh

Introduction: Previous researches emphasize the role of wife’s sole contribution in household decision-makings as predictor of family planning and reproductive health behaviors in many developing countries. These studies tend to overlook how couple’s joint decision-making may promote better reproductive health outcomes than any partner’s sole decision-makings which lack input or agreement from other partner in a marital relationship. Using married couple’s matched responses in decision-making questions; this study examines the association between couples’ concordant and discordant decision-makings, and wife’s unmet need for contraception and unintended pregnancy in Bangladesh. Methods: This study used couple’s dataset (n= 3336) of Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey of 2007. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the likelihood of unmet need for contraception, and unintended pregnancy among married women of reproductive age. Findings: Study findings reveal that there are substantial levels of both concordance and discordance in responses to household decision-making items. Results from logistic regression analyses suggest that compared to couple’s joint decision making, husband-only or wife-only decision-making is associated with higher risk for women in having both unmet need for contraception and unintended pregnancy. Regression results also indicate that unmet need for contraception and unintended pregnancy are lower among women with lower parity, women from relatively richer households, and women heard family planning messages on television. Conclusion: As couple’s joint decision-making is significantly associated with better reproductive outcomes, policy makers may promote community based outreach programs, and communication campaigns for family planning focusing on egalitarian gender role approach

Epidemiology of organophosphate poisoning in the North of Iran

The use of pesticides as one of the main agricultural poles has been increased in Iran in recent years. Organophosphate poisoning has harmful the consequences for human health. This study present clinical and laboratory evidences on the patients exposed to agricultural insecticides poisoning and the cause of these poisons. We collected clinical data from the patients referred to Razi Hospital, Rasht, Iran who were poisoned with organophosphorus toxins. For this purpose, a checklist was prepared, and data were collected for 414 patients between 2011 and 2016. The results showed that the most cases of poisoning were men (73%) and about 27.2% of the patients was in the age group of 45-60 years (highest frequency in age groups). The most frequent symptoms were vomiting (65%), nausea (61%), abdominal pain (39%), and perspiration (27%). There was also a decrease in consciousness (16%) and sialorrhea (16%). Totally, 186 (46.2%) patients were exposed to organophosphorus toxins by respiratory and 215 (53.4%) orally. Out of the 414 samples, 102 (33%) had abnormal creatine phosphokinase (CPK) enzymes and 114 (34.5%) abnormal lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). Mean hospital length of stay (LOS) was 3.3 days. We found significant relationship of LOS with heart failure, hypertension, and addiction. To better manage the process of treatment of agricultural poisoned patients and to reduce the waste of limited resources available, careful consideration should be given to the type of pesticide used by the patient to prevent overdose and unintentional use of antidote