The role of economic growth in reducing child undernutrition remains an open and highly debated question that holds important implications for food security strategies. The empirical evidence has been quite contrasted, primarily in regard to the magnitude of the impacts. Yet, most studies have not (appropriately) accounted for the reverse causality between economic growth and child stunting. Using a dataset of 74 developing countries observed between 1984 and 2014, this paper develops a novel approach accounting for the reverse causal effect of stunting on GDP per capita and finds that the impacts of economic growth are much lower than estimated in most previous studies. A 10% increase in GDP per capita reduces child stunting prevalence by 2.7%. In other words, economic growth is modestly pro-poor. We also estimate that a percentage point increase in child stunting prevalence results in a 0.4% decrease in GDP per capita. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that stunting costs on average about 13.5% of GDP per capita in developing countries. Full article

According to the Blacks’ Diminished Return theory, the health effects of high socioeconomic status (SES) are systemically smaller for Black compared to White families. One hypothesis is that due to the existing structural racism that encompasses residential segregation, low quality of education, low paying jobs, discrimination in the labor market, and extra costs of upward social mobility for minorities, Black families face more challenges for leveraging their education to escape poverty. Aims: Using a nationally representative sample of American families with children, this study investigated racial variation in the effects of highest education of parents on family’s ability to scale poverty, defined as the household’s income-to-needs ratio. Methods: This cross-sectional study used data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) 2003–2004—a nationally representative telephone survey that included 86,537 parents of children 0–17 years old. The sample was composed of White (n = 76,403, 88.29%) and Black (n = 10,134, 11.71%) families. The independent variable was highest education of the parents. The dependent variable was household poverty status (income-to-needs ratio). Race was the focal moderator. Linear regression was used in the pooled sample, as well as by race. Results: In the pooled sample, higher education of parents in the household was associated with lower risk of poverty. Race, however, interacted with parental education attainment on household-income-to-needs ratio, indicating smaller effects for Black compared to White families. Lower number of parents and higher number of children in Black families did not explain such racial disparities. Conclusions: The economic gain of parental education on helping family escape poverty is smaller for Black than White families, and this is not as a result of a lower parent-to-child ratio in Black households. Policies should specifically address structural barriers in the lives of all minorities to minimize the diminished return of SES resources across racial minority groups. Policies should also enhance quality of education and reduce the extra cost of upward social mobility for racial minorities. As the likely causes are multilevel, the solutions should also be multilevel. Without such interventions, it may be very difficult if not impossible to eliminate the existing economic and health gap between racial groups. Full article

Technological change causes three consequences: it guarantees economic growth, it requires employees to acquire more skills and human capital, and it increases inequality if employees are not capable adapting to new technologies. The second consequence makes it almost necessary for employees to learn during their whole working life, thereby accelerating technological change. Accordingly, the OECD (the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and many governments supports the idea of lifelong learning, but it remains unclear how to finance the education of adult students who are working efficiently. In this paper, we use an overlapping generation model with human capital accumulation and inequality to derive a mechanism which reduces income inequality and provides an incentive for all adults to invest more in education. As a consequence, the growth rate of per capita income will increase and income inequality will be reduced. Full article

Theoretically, human capital is conclusively believed to be positively related with economic growth. While empirically, the said relationship does not always hold for several reasons. Thus, the current paper presents new results on a set of conditions under which human capital is robustly and positively associated with economic growth. Using data for 132 countries over 15 years, the empirical results reveal that human capital plays a positive role in per capita GDP growth only in the presence of better economic opportunities and high-quality legal institutions. In fact, economic opportunities reinforce the effect of human capital on growth: the easier it is to do business and trade domestically or internationally, the stronger the effect of human capital on growth. In conclusion, the findings suggest that inconclusive results in previous empirical studies on human capital and growth might be due to omitted variable bias as these studies do not include variables related to social capabilities. Full article

A 2011 survey of Mexico City’s households revealed that families prefer alternative sources of drinking water instead of relying in the city’s quality supply services. These include the purchase of bottled water, installation of filtration devices, and other means of water purification. The demand for better water quality was tested by estimating the household’s willingness to pay (WTP), using a contingency valuation (CV) experiment through an open-format questionnaire and by estimating a censored econometric (Tobit) model. The econometric study revealed that the WTP for better water quality is influenced by variables related with distrust of the water quality provided by the City and the organoleptic characteristics of the water supply, as well as spending on bottled water or water purification technologies. The average WTP surcharge for better potable water quality is US$3.1 or 4.7% of the bimonthly water bill, which is about 0.22% of the average family income in Mexico City. The percentage of WTP to income is bigger in poor families. This suggests that improving water quality is of greater importance for lower income families. Findings are consistent with previous studies that estimated the WTP for improvements in the services that supply water to households in the city. These include reduction of inefficiency and intermittency of the supply along with water quality, improve measuring water meters, reducing the obsolescence of the infrastructure and increasing adequate maintenance. Our research is the first to estimate the WTP for better water quality in Mexico City and constitutes a reference point for those that address the problem of water quality and its impact on the welfare and income of families. Full article

Healthcare payments could drive households with no health insurance coverage into financial catastrophe, which might lead them to cut spending on necessities, sell assets, or use credit. In extreme cases, healthcare payments could have devastating consequences on the household economic status that would push them into extreme poverty. Using nationally representative surveys from three Arab countries, namely, Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine, this paper examines the incidence, intensity and distribution of catastrophic health payments, and assesses the poverty impact of out-of-pocket health payments (OOP). The OOP for healthcare were considered catastrophic if it exceeded 10% of a household’s total expenditure or 40% of non-food expenditure. The poverty impact was evaluated using poverty head counts and poverty gaps before and after OOP. Results show that OOP exacerbate households’ living severely in Egypt, pushing more than one-fifth of the population into a financial catastrophe and 3% into extreme poverty in 2011. However, in Jordan and Palestine, the disruptive impact of OOP remains modest over time. In the three countries, the catastrophic health payment is the problem of the better off households. Poverty alleviation policies should help reduce the reliance on OOP to finance healthcare. Moving toward universal health coverage could also be a promising option to protect households from the catastrophic economic consequences of health care payments. Full article

This study investigates the impact of different schooling dimensions (primary, secondary and tertiary) on the intensity of intra-state conflicts in 25 African states during the period 1989–2008. It uses fixed-effects and Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) estimators in an annualized panel data framework. Parameter estimates suggest the following (1) primary schooling broadly mitigates conflicts in Africa. However, in environments with high natural resource rents, it could ignite conflicts; (2) there is evidence, although not overwhelming, that secondary schooling potentially drives conflicts in Africa. There is also evidence that urbanization potentially drives conflicts in Africa. However, although secondary schooling and urbanization potentially drives conflicts, in environments where secondary schooling (urbanization) is high, urbanization (secondary schooling) mitigates conflicts; (3) there is no evidence of a strong direct positive impact of tertiary education on conflicts and conditioning on tertiary schooling, income inequality potentially drives conflicts in African states. However, in contexts where income inequality (tertiary schooling) is high, tertiary schooling (inequality) mitigates conflict. Two important policy implications follow from this study. First, in contexts where income inequality is high (for instance, in South Africa), governments should strive to foster tertiary education in order to reduce conflict. Second, where urbanization rates are high, they should foster both secondary and tertiary education. This study contributes to existing knowledge by clearly demonstrating the utility of distinguishing between different educational dimensions and the contexts wherein they matter for conflict mitigation in Africa. Full article

This paper aims to better understand the relationship between HIV knowledge and media exposure in India. We use a two-stage hurdle model to estimate the effect of media sources such as newspapers, radios and television on AIDS-related knowledge among Indian men and women using demographic health survey data. Overall, access to newspapers, radio, or television increases the likelihood of better HIV knowledge in both males and females by an order between 2% and 12%. These findings, albeit quantitatively small, suggest, even if indirectly, possible problems faced by AIDS campaigns and government programs in combating the HIV epidemic in India. Full article

The effects of Internet education on economic growth are examined using a cross-section of 36 high-income countries. Internet usage rates are employed as a proxy for Internet education across countries. Regression results show that the frequent usage of the Internet has a positive and significant effect on economic growth. The estimated growth effect of Internet skills is also found to be greater than the growth effect of math and science skills. The results are, in general, robust across model specifications. Full article