Harsha Thirumurthy - Carolina Population Center, UNC
Health Shocks and Natural Resource Management: Evidence from Western Kenya
Date: 03/28/2013 (Thu)
Time: 3:30pm- 5:00pm
Location: Seminar will be held on-site: Social Sciences 111
Organizer: giovanna merli
Meeting Schedule: Login or email the organizer to schedule a meeting.
All meetings will be held in the same location as the seminar unless otherwise noted.
*** - All meetings (unless otherwise noted) will be in 213 Soc-Sci -***
12:00pm - Lunch (Faculty Commons) Manoj Mohanan
1:00pm - Meet w/ DuPRI Students (Ryan Brown, Nick Ingwersen, Maria Laurito & Greg Callanan)
1:45pm - Amar Hamoudi
2:15pm - Seth Sanders
2:45pm - Giovanna Merli
3:15pm - Seminar Prep (111 Soc-Sci)
3:30pm - Seminar Presentation (3:30pm to 5:00pm)
Additional Comments: ABSTRACT: Poverty and altered planning horizons brought on by the HIV/AIDS epidemic can change individual discount rates, altering incentives to conserve natural resources. Using longitudinal data from household surveys in western Kenya, this paper estimate impacts of health status on labor productivity and discount rates. The findings indicate that household size and composition are predictors of whether the effect on productivity dominates the discount rate effect, or vice-versa. Since households with more and younger members are better able to reallocate labor to cope with productivity shocks, the discount rate impact dominates for these households and health improvements lead to greater levels of conservation. In smaller families with less substitutable labor, the productivity impact dominates and health improvements lead to greater environmental degradation.