Malaria suitability, urbanization and persistence: Evidence from China over more than 2000 years

Matthias Flückiger and Markus Ludwig

European Economic Review, 2017, vol. 92, issue C, 146-160

Abstract: We show that the climatic potential for Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission constituted a locational fundamental that influenced the spatial distribution of urbanization since the early start of the southward expansion of the Han Chinese around 200 BCE. This effect is still detectable in today's distribution of urbanization and economic activity even though the risk of malaria falciparum has been successfully eliminated. We do not find any indication of convergence between high- and low malaria potential regions after eradication. Our identification strategy relies on a climate-based measure of Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission intensity which is fitted to experimental data on mosquito and parasite development from laboratory studies. This measure is exogenous with respect to human population densities.

Keywords: Malaria; Urbanization; Economic growth; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 N15 O18 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292116302355
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:92:y:2017:i:c:p:146-160

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2016.12.006

Access Statistics for this article

European Economic Review is currently edited by T.S. Eicher, A. Imrohoroglu, E. Leeper, J. Oechssler and M. Pesendorfer

More articles in European Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().