The Effect of Ecological Management on Regional Health Inequality

Fafa Yan, Alec Zuo, Wen’e Qi () and Zhimin Zhou ()
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Fafa Yan: Lingnan College, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Alec Zuo: Centre for Global Food and Resources, School of Economics and Public Policy, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia
Wen’e Qi: College of Economics and Management, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Zhimin Zhou: School of Finance and Economics, Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University, Guangzhou 510665, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: Ecological management has been implemented to improve individual well-being. However, it remains unclear whether this management has improved health inequality over time. Aiming to examine whether health inequality is caused by ecological management in China, we harnessed a macro-level dataset from 2001 to 2019 across 31 Chinese provinces—combined with gene and dietary culture data—and utilized a bilateral approach to pair provincial data. Empirical results of system Generalized Method of Moments (sys-GMM) estimations in benchmark and extensive models which suggest a negative and statistically significant causal effect of ecological management on health inequality. Specifically, ecological management contributes to decreasing the inequality in the population death rate, the death rate among pregnant women, the underweight newborn rate, the child malnutrition rate, and the infectious disease mortality. The results are robust to weak instruments in the sys-GMM setting and a delayed effect of ecological management. Additionally, the heterogeneity analysis shows that the causal effect of ecological management on decreasing regional health inequality is more significant and higher for subsamples in identical regions than in different regions.

Keywords: health inequality; China; ecological management; causality; endogeneity; sys-GMM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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