Malaria: Disease Impacts and Long-Run Income Differences

Douglas Gollin () and Christian Zimmermann ()

No 2007-30, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that malaria, a parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes, causes over 300 million episodes of "acute illness" and more than one million deaths annually. Most of the deaths occur in poor countries of the tropics, and especially sub-Saharan Africa. Some researchers have suggested that ecological differences associated with malaria prevalence are perhaps the most important reason why some countries today are rich and others poor. This paper explores the question in an explicit dynamic general equilibrium framework, using a calibrated model that incorporates epidemiological features into a standard general equilibrium framework.

Keywords: Malaria; Epidemiology; GDP; Disease prevention; Sub-Saharan Africa. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 O11 E13 E21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dge, nep-hea and nep-mac
Date: 2007-08
Note: Portions of this research were undertaken while Gollin was on leave at the Economic Growth Center, Yale University, and at the Centre for Study of African Economies, Oxford University. Gollin gratefully acknowledges support and facilities at both institutions. Hoyt Bleakley has kindly shared information and preliminary results. We have also benefited from the comments of Ben Bridgman, Steve Meardon, Lara Shore-Sheppard, Gustavo Ventura, David Weil, and seminar and conference participants at the Arizona State University Conference on Economic Development; the Society for Economic Dynamics 2005 meetings in Budapest; the University of Essex; Rutgers University; the University of Delaware; University of Connecticut; University of Houston; Wesleyan University; LAMES 2006 in Mexico City; the Northeast Universities Development Conference 2005 at Brown University; and the Harvard Center for International Development.s May 2007 conference on Health Improvements for Economic Growth.
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Working Paper: Malaria: Disease Impacts and Long-Run Income Differences (2007)
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