Mosquitoes: The long-term effects of malaria eradication in India

Type Working Paper
Title Mosquitoes: The long-term effects of malaria eradication in India
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2007
URL http://www.nber.org/papers/w13539
Abstract
We examine the effects of malaria on educational attainment and income by exploiting
geographic variation in malaria prevalence in India prior to a nationwide eradication program in
the 1950s. We find that the program led to modest increases in income for prime age men. This
finding is robust tousing very localized sources of geographic variation and to instrumenting for
pre-eradication prevalence with climate factors. We do not observe improvements in income for
women, suggesting that observed effects are likely driven by increased labor market
productivity. We find no evidence of increased educational attainment for men, and mixed
evidence for women.

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