Health Policies and Infant Mortality in Indonesia - Revised the goal of this research is to examine empirically the contribution of government health policies in reducing infant mortality in developing countries. Throughout the past half century, infant mortality has been declining dramatically throughout much of the developing world. These declines have been a major source of increased welfare as well as an important component of the demographic transition in many developing countries. Yet much remains unanswered about the determinants of this decline, its likely future direction, and the potential for public policies to contribute to further reductions in infant mortality. This project will examine empirically the relative contribution of two potential sources of the decline in infant mortality: (1) public health investments, such as sanitation projects and access to clean water; and (2) improvements in access to primary medical care, such as midwives, nurses, doctors, and modern medicine. The project will do so by examining the case of Indonesia, where infant mortality fell by more than half from 1970 - 1997. To do this, the project will exploit the substantial variation in both public health investment and access to primary health care across time and space to identify the causal effects of each. Doing so will shed light on whether health spending has played an important role in reducing infant mortality in Indonesia, and which policies in particular are likely to be important in reducing infant mortality further in the future. ? ? ?
| Olken, Benjamin A; Singhal, Monica (2011) Informal Taxation. Am Econ J Appl Econ 3:1-28 |
