The Economic Effects of Malaria Eradication: Evidence from an Intervention in Uganda

This study evaluates the economic consequences of a malaria eradication campaign in the southwestern Ugandan district of Kigezi. The project was a joint venture between the WHO and Uganda's Ministry of Health, designed to test for the first time the feasibility of malaria eradication in a sub-Saharan African country. During the years of 1959 and 1960, eradication efforts employing DDT spraying and mass distribution of anti-malarials were implemented, beginning in northern Kigezi. Follow-up studies reported a drop in overall parasite rates from 22.7 to 0.5% in hyperendemic areas and from 12.5 to 0% in mesoendemic areas. We use this campaign as a plausibly exogenous health shock to explore changes in human-capital formation and income. We employ a difference-in-difference methodology to show that eradication produced differential improvements in Kigezi compare to the rest of Uganda in years of schooling, literacy, and primary school completion. In addition, we find suggestive evidence that eradication increased income levels.