Research

Breaking Intergenerational Cycles of Poverty and Poor Health

Disease, Disparities, and Development: Evidence from Chagas Disease Control in Brazil (with Eduardo Montero)

Because neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) afflict the world's poorest people and can cause decades-long health problems, combating them could reduce inequality, the intergenerational transmission of poverty, and burdens on healthcare systems in developing economies. We show that these novel benefits arose from Brazil's 1984-89 campaign to eliminate Chagas disease, an NTD that occurs almost entirely among poor, non-white, and rural Latin Americans and can cause chronic heart problems. Exploiting the pre-treatment presence of its main vector, we find that controlling it increased municipalities' GDP per capita by 11.1% and reduced their Gini coefficients by 1.1% in the long run. Furthermore, childhoods free of exposure to this NTD increased the share of non-white adults in the top half of the income distribution by 1.4 percentage points (p.p., or 2.8%) and their children's literacy rates by 0.44 p.p. (0.46%). Coinciding with the expected reduction in chronic symptoms, we also show that public spending on circulatory disease hospital care declined by 16%, contributing to an internal rate of return of 24% and an infinite marginal value of public funds. These results suggest that NTD control can improve the economic and fiscal health of developing countries while mitigating (racial) disparities and intergenerational cycles of poverty.

Rags to Rags: The Intergenerational Effects of Ending Cash Transfers in Victorian Britain (with Jennifer Mayo)

We study the intergenerational impacts of cash transfers using the 1834 ("New") Poor Law, which drastically cut the income support that had been provided to 15 percent of the population in England and Wales and cost 2 percent of GDP. We show that in 1861, cohorts more exposed to income-support declines in childhood held lower-skilled jobs as adults and had fewer of their children in school. Linking these sons to the 1901 census, we find the same results for them as adults and for their children, highlighting the importance of accounting for multi-generational effects in cost-benefit analyses of social programs.

Deworming as HIV Prevention for Young Women: Evidence from Zimbabwe

Nearly one-third of new HIV infections in Sub-Saharan Africa occur in young women, largely because their partners are from high-prevalence groups. Since marriage market matching is shaped by human capital, which is influenced by childhood health, can deworming girls lower their chances of contracting HIV as young women? To answer this question, I study Zimbabwe’s school-based deworming program (2012-17), which substantially reduced rates of urogenital schistosomiasis. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that 3 years after it began, young women’s HIV prevalence fell 2.7 percentage points (p.p., 44 percent) more in high-schistosomiasis districts. Human capital’s effects on marriage market matching appear to explain the results: young women’s secondary school attendance rose 6.0 p.p. (9 percent), and they had less age-disparate and fewer sexual partners. These results show that a cheap treatment for a common childhood disease can also slow an expensive and deadly pandemic, substantially increasing deworming’s estimated benefits.

Eradicating the Disease of the Empty Granary: Health, Structural Transformation, and Intergenerational Mobility in West Africa (with Conor Owen Carney)

Are there cost-effective national-level interventions in developing economies that can increase agricultural productivity and thus accelerate structural transformation? A promising candidate is to improve the health of farmers through neglected tropical disease (NTD) control given its low costs and potential for rapid improvements in adults' ability to work. We test this hypothesis in a difference-in-differences approach using the eradication of Guinea worm disease (GWD) from West Africa beginning in 1990. Preliminary results from Ghana show that more adults who were children in formerly high GWD districts today live in cities, hold white-collar jobs, and are literate, and their have children have more education. We also show that these areas experienced larger increases in agricultural productivity immediately after GWD eradication began, suggesting that NTD control can be an engine of structural transformation and intergenerational mobility in developing economies.

Historical and Cultural Roots of Hardship and Exclusion

Circular Migration, Marriage Markets, and HIV: Long-Run Evidence from Mozambique [AEHN Working Paper 76, under revision]

I study the impacts of exposure to one of Africa's largest circular migration flows using an arbitrary border within Mozambique that, from 1893 to 1942, separated areas where young men were either pushed into or prevented from migrating. Counterintuitively, but consistent with historical narratives and theoretical predictions, HIV prevalence is lower today on the former migrant-sending side of the border while living standards are similar. The evidence suggests that age gaps between partners – which promote HIV's spread – have long been smaller in this region, as circular migration allowed much younger men to afford the requisite marriage payments to brides' families.

Crimes against Nature: The Colonial Roots of Homophobia in Sub-Saharan Africa (with Teevrat Garg)

Anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment and laws are severe and pervasive across Sub-Saharan Africa. A common explanation is that homosexuality is antithetical to the region's cultures, but there is evidence of tolerance for homosexuality across precolonial Africa, suggesting that this discrimination was instead a product of the colonial period. We test this hypothesis by comparing former colonies of Portugal -- which did not criminalize homosexuality in its overseas empire until the eve of decolonization and did not task missionaries with “civilizing” Africans through education and moral regulation -- to neighboring countries. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that acceptance of homosexuals increases significantly just inside former Portuguese colonies, but there are no effects on sentiments toward other out-groups. Preliminary evidence suggests that our results arose from the differences in missionary activities. By identifying the roots of the exclusion and persecution of LGBTQIA+ individuals across Sub-Saharan Africa, our results can serve as a first step toward ending these harmful practices.