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Essays in development economics Bonomo, Tiago
Abstract
In Chapter 2, I document the health consequences of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon and examine whether access to public healthcare can mitigate potential adverse effects. I link comprehensive hospitalization and mortality records with satellite information on fire locations and wind patterns to identify the causal impact of fires on health for individuals across all age groups. I find that upwind fires increase hospital admissions for infants and children, which is driven by respiratory and circulatory diseases, as well as child and adult mortality. Access to public healthcare services, particularly community health centers and clinical doctors, strongly mitigates the effects, suggesting an essential role for healthcare delivery in mitigating the impacts of climate change. In Chapter 3, we study the impacts of fires in the Brazilian Amazon on electoral performance. We combine satellite data on fires and wind direction with administrative data on municipal elections at the polling station level to assess whether voters punish incumbent mayors running for reelection in locations adversely affected by fires before the elections. The empirical strategy explores exogenous variation in wind direction at the time of fire detection to estimate the differential effects of fires that generated more air pollution due to the direction in which the wind was blowing when they took place. We find that upwind fires significantly decrease incumbents' vote shares. The effects are robust across different specifications and are more adverse for places with lower educational levels, lower income, and more urbanized. Chapter 4 evaluates the impacts of a large cash transfer program in Brazil in which prenatal care was required for benefit receipt. Using administrative data from the program and the Brazilian Ministry of Health, we compare women at different stages of pregnancy when the program was implemented to identify the degree to which additional income and access to prenatal care affected birth outcomes and prenatal care utilization. We find that the benefit reduced the incidence of low birth weight, preterm births, and the likelihood of starting prenatal care late. Better prenatal care, in combination with the additional income, appears to drive improvements in birth outcomes.
Item Metadata
Title |
Essays in development economics
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Creator | |
Supervisor | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
2024
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Description |
In Chapter 2, I document the health consequences of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon and examine whether access to public healthcare can mitigate potential adverse effects. I link comprehensive hospitalization and mortality records with satellite information on fire locations and wind patterns to identify the causal impact of fires on health for individuals across all age groups. I find that upwind fires increase hospital admissions for infants and children, which is driven by respiratory and circulatory diseases, as well as child and adult mortality. Access to public healthcare services, particularly community health centers and clinical doctors, strongly mitigates the effects, suggesting an essential role for healthcare delivery in mitigating the impacts of climate change.
In Chapter 3, we study the impacts of fires in the Brazilian Amazon on electoral performance. We combine satellite data on fires and wind direction with administrative data on municipal elections at the polling station level to assess whether voters punish incumbent mayors running for reelection in locations adversely affected by fires before the elections. The empirical strategy explores exogenous variation in wind direction at the time of fire detection to estimate the differential effects of fires that generated more air pollution due to the direction in which the wind was blowing when they took place. We find that upwind fires significantly decrease incumbents' vote shares. The effects are robust across different specifications and are more adverse for places with lower educational levels, lower income, and more urbanized.
Chapter 4 evaluates the impacts of a large cash transfer program in Brazil in which prenatal care was required for benefit receipt. Using administrative data from the program and the Brazilian Ministry of Health, we compare women at different stages of pregnancy when the program was implemented to identify the degree to which additional income and access to prenatal care affected birth outcomes and prenatal care utilization. We find that the benefit reduced the incidence of low birth weight, preterm births, and the likelihood of starting prenatal care late. Better prenatal care, in combination with the additional income, appears to drive improvements in birth outcomes.
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Genre | |
Type | |
Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2024-09-03
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0445296
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2024-11
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Rights URI | |
Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International