Paper #766

Title:

Fighting against Malaria: Prevent wars while waiting for the "miraculous" vaccine

Authors:

José Garcia Montalvo and Marta Reynal-Querol

Date:

September 2001 (Revised: January 2006)

Abstract:

The World Health Organization estimates that 300 million clinical cases of malaria occur annually and observed that during the 80's and part of the 90's its incidence increased. In this paper we explore the influence of refugees from civil wars on the incidence of malaria in the refugee-receiving countries. Using civil wars as an instrumental variable we show that for each 1,000 refugees there are between 2,000 and 2,700 cases of malaria in the refugee receiving country. On average 13% of the cases of malaria reported by the WHO are caused by forced migration as a consequence of civil wars.

Keywords:

Civil wars, forced migration, economic impact

JEL codes:

I18, I31, O15.

Area of Research:

Statistics, Econometrics and Quantitative Methods

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