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Do Public Health Interventions Crowd Out Private Health Investments? Malaria Control Policies in Eritrea

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  • Carneiro, Pedro

    (University College London)

  • Locatelli, Andrea

    (University College London)

  • Ghebremeskel, Tewolde

    (Ministry of Health)

  • Keating, Joseph

    (Tulane University)

Abstract

It is often argued that engaging in indoor residual spraying (IRS) in areas with high coverage of mosquito bed nets may discourage net ownership and use. This is just a case of a public program inducing perverse incentives. We analyze new data from a randomized control trial conducted in Eritrea which surprisingly shows the opposite: IRS encouraged net acquisition and use. Our evidence points to the role of imperfect information. The introduction of IRS may have made the problem of malaria more salient, leading to a change in beliefs about its importance and to an increase in private health investments.

Suggested Citation

  • Carneiro, Pedro & Locatelli, Andrea & Ghebremeskel, Tewolde & Keating, Joseph, 2012. "Do Public Health Interventions Crowd Out Private Health Investments? Malaria Control Policies in Eritrea," IZA Discussion Papers 6560, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6560
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    Cited by:

    1. Luke Harman & Catherine Goodman & Andrew Dorward, 2018. "The impact of a mosquito net voucher subsidy programme on incremental ownership: The case of the Tanzania National Voucher Scheme," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 480-492, March.
    2. Rossi, Pauline & Villar, Paola, 2020. "Private health investments under competing risks: Evidence from malaria control in Senegal," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    3. Kate Ambler & Diego Aycinena & Dean Yang, 2015. "Channeling Remittances to Education: A Field Experiment among Migrants from El Salvador," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 207-232, April.
    4. Gabriel Picone & Robyn Kibler & Bénédicte H. Apouey, 2017. "Malaria Prevalence, Indoor Residual Spraying, and Insecticide Treated Net Usage in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of African Development, African Finance and Economic Association (AFEA), vol. 19(2), pages 19-32.
    5. Cuina Zhang & Ruobing Li & Yun Xia & Yixing Yuan & Hasan Dinçer & Serhat Yüksel, 2020. "Analysis of Environmental Activities for Developing Public Health Investments and Policies: A Comparative Study with Structure Equation and Interval Type 2 Fuzzy Hybrid Models," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-23, March.
    6. Milusheva,Sveta, 2020. "Using Mobile Phone Data to Reduce Spread of Disease," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9198, The World Bank.
    7. Milusheva, Sveta, 2020. "Managing the spread of disease with mobile phone data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    crowding out; behavior; malaria; beliefs; information; indoor residual spray; bed nets; health; developing countries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

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