Poor Economics

Question 1

Authors

Answer 1

Banerjee and Dufflo

Question 2

Year

Answer 2

2011

Question 3

Key idea

Answer 3

not a problem of quantity of food, but quality

as income increases, poor do not improve quality

Question 4

What is the impact of poor nutrition on children?

Answer 4

extremely important for unborn and young children, 2 years of deworming in Kenya instead of 1 leads to mean increase of $2000 in earning

Question 5

What are the impacts of strong nutrition for children

Answer 5

Shown in formative years- significantly improves physical and cognitive ability, healthier children start school earlier, do better in school, stay in school for longer

Question 6

What solutions are offered?

Answer 6

Directly invest in children and pregnant mothers
- fortified food to mothers
- incentives to consume well
- treatment for worms (Kenya)
- provide children with micronutrient rich meals
Change priority of food technologies from quality to quantity
eg orange sweet potatoes in Uganda new salt fortified with iron and iodine in India

Question 7

2 main observations

Answer 7

1. low hanging fruits already exist

2. health seeking behaviour same in developed economies, but have choices made for us

Question 8

Explain low hanging fruits

Answer 8

cheap options and improvements to health already available but underutilized

• vaccines, chlorine bleach fortified salt and sugar
• Available via NGOS - mosquito nets - 15% increase in income only increases probability of buy net by 5% despite the use of a net increasing income by 15%

Question 9

Insulin reference and quote?

Answer 9

The insulin Dilemna in resource-limited countries, gill et. al

despite fact that human and animal insulin almost just as effective, developing countries do not use, instead buy analogue which is 13x more expensive. providing latest insulin in resource constrained economies diverts scarce resources from more effective uses in diabetes care

Question 10

Explain how health seeking behaviour is same in developed and undeveloped countries

Answer 10

we have good choices made for us

- clean water piped in so dont need to add chlorin, immunization compulsory etc.

Question 11

What are the four explanations for this

Answer 11

1. Psychological sunk cost
2. wrong beliefs
3. weak beliefs and necessity of hope
4. procrastination and time inconsistency

Question 12

Solutions recommended

Answer 12

Demand Side

1. Educate mothers
2. Invest in clean waters, sanitation, reduce costs faced by poor
3. make full cycle of basic immunization

Question 13

Out of pocket spending quote

Answer 13

Lewis paper on role of domestic resource allocation and development assistance in financing health
OOP expenditure most regressive form of financing, pushes poor to brink of financial catastrophe, discourages utilization, barrier to use