Arjun S. Bedi

• International centre of social science education and research

Introduction The Ethiopian health system is primarily financed through household out-of-pocket expenditure and financial support from donors. High user fees lead to catastrophic health spending and limited use of services. To promote healthcare-seeking behavior and provide financial protection through enhanced domestic financing, the Ethiopian gove...

There has been a growing concern about the financial sustainability of community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes in developing countries recently. However, little empirical studies have been conducted to identify potential contributors including ex-ante and ex-post moral hazards. We respond to this concern by investigating the effects of bein...

Background After years of planning, in 2024 the government of Ethiopia proposes to introduce a compulsory Social Health Insurance (SHI) program for formal sector employees. The proposed scheme will provide access to contracted healthcare facilities at a premium of 3% of the gross monthly income of employees with another 3% coming from the employer....

There is substantial evidence that due to perceived childcare obligations, mothers are disadvantaged in labor markets. To what extent can childcare support ameliorate such a disadvantage? To answer this question, we ran a CV experiment in a large Indian city and examined whether indicating access to childcare support in a CV may offset the motherho...

Recent evidence highlights that integrated interventions have sustainable impacts on household welfare. This paper evaluates the ‘Char Development and Settlement Program,’ which targets marginalized, coastal populations of Bangladesh and is implemented by the NGO BRAC, which pioneers integrated programs in over 20 countries. The analysis exploits h...

Background In low-income countries, vaccination campaigns are lagging, and evidence on vaccine acceptance, a crucial public health planning input, remains scant. This is the first study that reports willingness to take COVID-19 vaccines and its socio-demographic correlates in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country. Methods The analysis is...

Objectives In recent years, Ethiopia has made enormous strides in enhancing access to healthcare, especially, maternal and child healthcare. With the onset and spread of COVID-19, the attention of the healthcare system has pivoted to handling the disease, potentially at the cost of other healthcare needs. This paper explores whether this shift has...

The existing experimental evidence on returns to capital is based on randomisation of either interest-bearing loans or grants. This paper reports on a field experiment conducted in Pakistan in which interest-free loans were randomly provided to microenterprises. The study was conducted in co-operation with Akhuwat Islamic Microfinance. We find that...

Introduction: In recent years Ethiopia has made enormous strides in enhancing access to health care, especially, maternal and child health care (MCH). With the onset and spread of Covid-19, the attention of the health care system has pivoted to handling the disease, potentially at the cost of other health care needs. This paper explores whether thi...

As in most immigrant-receiving countries in the global North, countries in the South face challenges regarding migrant access to social rights and the effect of migrants on the sustainability of the welfare state. In the Latin American context, this holds especially for countries such as Costa Rica, which has one of the strongest social policy regi...

This paper assesses the impact of solar home systems (SHS) on energy consumption and energy-related expenditures among Kenyan households. Based on a pipeline comparison approach of more than a thousand households, we find that access to a SHS leads to a net increase of 24 to 36 min in daily lighting use due to a 3 h increase in the use of LED lamps...

We use three years of household panel data to analyze the effects of ill-health on household economic outcomes in rural Ethiopia. We examine the immediate effects of various ill-health measures on health expenditure and labor supply, the subsequent coping responses, and finally the effect on income and consumption. We find evidence of substantial e...

Ethiopia’s Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) scheme was established with the objectives of enhancing access to health care, reducing out-of-pocket expenditure (OOP), mobilizing financial resources and enhancing the quality of health care. Previous analyses have shown that the scheme has enhanced health care access and led to reductions in OOP...

This article examines the adaptation and biomedical transition of people living with HIV (PLHIV) to antiretroviral treatment (ART) in Burkina Faso. The study employs a representative sample of 3625 randomly selected patients. Subjective and objective measures of health and their predictors are compared for short-term (≤24 months) versus longer-term...

In a number of countries, youth unemployment is a pressing concern. In India, 54% of the country’s population is below the age of 25 and faces a high rate of (disguised) unemployment. To augment youth employment, the Government of India has launched a number of skills training programs. This paper deals with participation in and the impact of one o...

In developing countries and in particular in sub-Saharan Africa, social protection schemes tend to operate in silos. However, schemes targeting the same geographical areas may have synergies that have not yet been examined, and which are worth scrutinising. This paper contributes to this knowledge gap by examining the joint impacts of two social pr...

Little is known about perceptions of medical expenditure risks despite their presumed relevance to the demand for health insurance. This is the first study to examine households’ beliefs about their future spending on health care. The study made a unique elicitation of subjective probabilities of medical expenditures from rural Ethiopians participa...

We exploit variation in the design of subnational health-care financing initiatives in Indonesian districts to assess the effects of these local schemes on maternal care from 2004 to 2010. The analysis is based on a district pseudopanel, combining data from a unique survey among District Health Offices with the Indonesian Demographic and Health Sur...

The data presented in this article are related to the research paper titled, “The impact of a household biogas programme on energy use and expenditure in East Java” (A.S. Bedi, R. Sparrow, L. Tasciotti, 2017) [1]. This Data in Brief article presents two rounds of survey data conducted in 2011 and 2012 for a panel of 677 dairy farm households in the...

Biogas has been promoted as a renewable, cleaner and cheaper energy source. While there are several initiatives promoting the use of biogas, credible analyses of its effects on the use of alternative energy sources and energy related expenditure are limited. This study uses panel data from households engaged in dairy farming in rural East Java to a...

Rural households in Ethiopia are exposed to a variety of covariate and idiosyncratic risks. In 2005, the Ethiopian government introduced the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) and in 2011 launched the Community Based Health Insurance Scheme (CBHI). This paper analyses the interaction between the two schemes and their joint effect on health care u...

Can the feminisation of public services improve service quality and lower corruption? The underlying logic of such efforts is the belief that women have higher ethical standards than men. To answer this question, we examine the link between gender and policing norms using data from twelve vignette cases assessed by 600 Ugandan police officers. Our...

Historical accounts of the evolution of child labour are limited to the United States and to the core European economies. The experience of countries outside the prosperous European core has rarely been investigated. This paper draws on data from censii, labour force and household surveys and qualitative information such as the testimonies of vario...

We test whether humans are intuitively inclined to help or punish strangers using a natural field experiment. The experiment manipulates the time available to decide whether to help or punish a stranger in an everyday situation. Our findings suggest that humans intuitively tend to help. However, time delay significantly reduces helping rates. In li...

As more and more countries are moving towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC), it is important to understand the macro level or aggregate impacts of such a policy. We use synthetic control methods to study the impact of UHC, introduced in Thailand in 2001, on various macroeconomic and health outcomes. Thailand is compared to a weighted average of c...

Due to lack of well-developed insurance and credit markets, rural families in Ethiopia are exposed to a range of covariate and idiosyncratic risks. In 2005, to deal with the consequences of covariate risks, the government implemented the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), and in 2011, to mitigate the financial consequences of ill-health, the gov...

A large body of work in educational economics displays the tenuous relationship between school inputs and cognitive achievement. Among others, the inability to establish a strong link has been attributed to the difficulty of controlling for attributes such as ability, motivation and interest. Against this background, and inspired by work in economi...

Background: Retention in care and adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) among people living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLHIV) is a critical challenge in many African countries including Burkina Faso. Delivering text messaging (short message service, SMS) interventions through mobile phones may help facilitate health service delivery an...

Indonesia has seen an emergence of local health care financing schemes over the last decade, implemented and operated by district governments. Often motivated by the local political context and characterized by a large degree of heterogeneity in scope and design, the common objective of the district schemes is to address the coverage gaps for the i...

Low renewal rate is a key challenge facing the sustainability of community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes. While there is a large literature on initial enrolment into such schemes, there is limited evidence on the factors that impede renewal. This article uses longitudinal data to analyse what determines renewal, both 1 year and 2 years afte...

Background: In recent years, supported by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), a number of community based health insurance (CBHI) schemes have been operating in rural India. Such schemes design their benefit packages according to local priorities. This paper examines healthcare seeking behaviour among self-help group households with a view to un...

Since the 1990s, community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes have been proposed to reduce the financial consequences of illness and enhance access to healthcare in developing countries. Convincing evidence on the ability of such schemes to meet their objectives is scarce. This paper uses randomized control trials conducted in rural Uttar Prades...

We investigate the economic consequences of sickness and death and the manner in which poor urban households in Bangladesh respond to such events. Based on panel data we assess the effects of morbidity and mortality episodes on household income, medical spending, labor supply, and consumption. We find that despite maintaining household labor supply...

Low contract renewal rates have been identified as one of the challenges facing the development of community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes. This article uses longitudinal household survey data gathered in 2012 and 2013 to examine dropout in the case of Ethiopia’s pilot CBHI scheme. We treat dropout as a function of scheme affordability, hea...

Low renewal rate is a key challenge facing the sustainability of Community-based Health Insurance (CBHI) schemes. While there is a large literature on initial enrolment into such schemes, there is limited evidence on the factors that impede renewal. This paper uses longitudinal data to analyse what determines renewal, both one and two years after...

In 2011, in an attempt to increase access to health care and reduce household vulnerability to out-of-pocket health expenditure, the Government of Ethiopia launched a Community-Based Health Insurance Scheme (CBHI). This paper uses three rounds of household survey data, collected before and after the introduction of the CBHI pilot, to assess the imp...

Little is known about perceptions of medical expenditure risks despite their presumed relevance to health insurance demand. This paper reports on a unique elicitation of subjective probabilities of medical expenditures from rural Ethiopians who are offered the opportunity to purchase health insurance. We find that expectations are positively correl...

Using survey data and event history interviews undertaken in Ethiopia, we investigate which shocks trigger which coping responses and why. Relatively covariate natural and economic shocks trigger reductions in savings and in food consumption, while relatively idiosyncratic health shocks prompt reductions in savings and a reliance on borrowing. Surp...

This study examines the impact of weather variations on food consumption in rural Uganda. The paper relies on two-period panel data (2005/06-2009/10) combined with data on rainfall, number of rainy days and maximum and minimum temperatures. We find that higher temperatures have an adverse effect on food consumption. In contrast, food consumption is...

To examine the effect of prenatal care (PNC) on the level and distribution of child stunting in three Andean countries-Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru-where expanding access to such care has been an explicit policy intervention to tackle child malnutrition in utero and during early childhood. An econometric analysis of cross-sectional Demographic and H...

Policy brief on the effectiveness of community-based health insurance scheme. It was conducted based on systematic review of the litrature

To investigate the determinants of healthcare-seeking behaviour using five context-relevant clinical vignettes. The analysis deals with three issues: whether and where to seek modern care and when to seek care. This study is set in 96 villages located in four main regions of Ethiopia. The participants of this study are 1632 rural households compris...

This paper argues for a sub-regional approach to Somali piracy and militant Islamism, departing from prevailing state-centric mindsets and practices. The first section presents an anthropology that explains why piracy and Islamism emerged where they did when they did. It elaborates the geographically distinct cultures of law and livelihood that ena...

In June 2011, the Government of Ethiopia rolled out a pilot Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) scheme. This paper assesses scheme uptake. We examine whether the scheme is inclusive, the role of health status in inducing enrolment and the effect of the quality of health care on uptake. By December 2012, scheme uptake had reached an impressive 4...

A growing share of manufacturing in GDP and in employment is a common feature observed in successful developing countries. Manufacturing, however, has not been a major source of employment in Ethiopia and in other Sub-Saharan African countries. This paper relies on a unique census-based panel data covering the period 1996–2007 to analyse the micro-...

This article assesses insurance uptake in three community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes located in rural parts of two of India's poorest states and offered through women's self-help groups (SHGs). We examine what drives uptake, the degree of inclusive practices of the schemes and the influence of health status on enrolment. The most importa...

Background In recent years, there has been a proliferation of community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes designed to provide financial protection against the costs of health care and expand access to modern health-care services to the informal and rural sectors. In 2011, a pilot CBHI scheme was introduced in Ethiopia. This study aims to rigoro...

In recent years, supported by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), a number of community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes have been operating in rural India. Such schemes design their benefit packages according to local priorities. This paper examines healthcare seeking behaviour among self-help group households with a view to understanding...

This article assesses insurance uptake in three community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes located in rural parts of two of India’s poorest states and offered through women’s self-help groups (SHGs). We examine what 15 drives uptake, the degree of inclusive practices of the schemes and the influence of health status on enrolment. The most impo...

Abstract Background: In recent years, supported by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), a number of communitybased health insurance (CBHI) schemes have been operating in rural India. Such schemes design their benefit packages according to local priorities. This paper examines healthcare seeking behaviour among self-help group households with a vi...

This book is written in commemoration of Karel Jansen. It was originally planned as a Liber Amicorum for his retirement in 2011 to honour a valued and productive colleague, teacher and researcher. After Karel’s sudden death the contributors decided to do just that and go on with the production of this volume of short essays. The essays in combinati...

This paper analyses the effect of community participation in maintaining rural infrastructure assets created through India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

This paper argues that since 2005, the global security discourse has confused maritime piracy off the Horn of Africa with terrorism. American and European policymakers and financiers have tapped a vulnerable public imaginary to exaggerate Somali pirates as ‘maritime terrorists’ linked to Shabaab and Al Qaeda, driving the militarization and lega...

The importance of ever-earlier interventions to help children reach their physical and cognitive potential is increasingly being recognized. In part, as a result of this, in developing countries, antenatal care is becoming an important element of strategies to prevent child stunting in utero and later. Notwithstanding their policy relevance and sub...

We explore three hitherto poorly understood characteristics of the human trafficking market – the cross-border ease of mobility of traffickers, the relative bargaining strength of traffickers and final buyers, and the elasticity of buyers' demand. In a model of two-way bargaining, the exact configuration of these characteristics is shown to determi...

The impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestically owned firms in developing countries has been widely debated in the literature. It has been argued that FDI provides access to advanced technologies and other intangible assets which may spill over to the host country and allow domestic firms to improve their performance. While there is a...

This paper explores empirically and theoretically one of the least studied economic phenomenon: the trafficking of women and children into slavery. By focusing on market imper-fections and differential bargaining power amongst the concerned parties, we pin down how the incentives of traffickers (middlemen) are affected in response to interventions...

Provisional estimates based on Census 2011 show that the sex ratio in the age group 0 to 6 in India continued to decline, from 927 in 2001 to 914 in 2011. Contrary to the national trend, the 0-6 sex ratio for Tamil Nadu has registered an increase for the first time since 1961, increasing from 942 in 2001 to 946 in 2011. On the basis of an analysis...

In 1997, Guyana started to receive debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. In 2001, to qualify for the Enhanced HIPC Initiative, Guyana developed a Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) that committed the country to a reorientation of its economic and social policies towards the objectives of the PRS and the achievement...

Notwithstanding increased educational expenditure, Portugal continues to record poor educational outcomes. Underlining the weak expenditure-educational success link, a large body of work in educational economics displays that there is a tenuous relationship between a range of school inputs and cognitive achievement. Among others, the inability to e...

One of the four goals of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is the provision of a, “Strong social safety net for the vulnerable groups by providing a fall-back employment source, when other employment alternatives are scarce or inadequate” (Ministry of Rural Development, 2008, p. 1). This article is motivated by the goal stated above and i...

The Cradle Baby Scheme (CBS) was launched in 1992 by the Government of Tamil Nadu as a response to the practice of female infanticide. Nearly two decades on, even as little is known about the functioning of the scheme, it continues to attract criticism from civil society. To place the debate on a somewhat more informed footing, this paper examines...

Throughout Latin America, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs play an important role in social policy. These programs aim to influence the accumulation of human capital, as well as reduce poverty. In terms of educational outcomes, a number of impact evaluation studies have shown that such programs have led to an increase in school enrollment,...

Agricultural production is an important source of income and employment for developing countries, yet it is the cause of serious environmental problems. Though ECO-labels appear as a promising alternative to control the negative effects of agriculture on the environment and to increase the income of rural poor, the proportion of agricultural land a...

The Girl Child Protection Scheme in Tamil Nadu was introduced in 1992; surveys and data analysis show that between the late 1990s and 2002-03, daughter elimination has declined sharply. However, a close look at the scheme reveals that its implementation is not targeted at districts with a high prevalence of female infanticide, that it assumes only...

Summary Over the last decade Ecuador has experienced a strong increase in financial transfers from migrated workers. This paper investigates how remittances via trans-national networks affect human capital investments through relaxing resource constraints and facilitate households in consumption smoothing by reducing vulnerability to economic shock...

Dominant development policy approaches recommend women’s employment on the grounds that it facilitates their well-being. However, empirical work on the relationship between women’s employment status and well-being as measured by freedom from marital violence yields ambiguous results. Motivated by the ambiguity, this paper uses data from Uttar Prade...

In 2001–2, Argentina experienced a wrenching economic crisis. Plan Jefes, implemented in May 2002, was Argentina’s institutional response to the increase in unemployment and poverty triggered by the crisis. The program provided a safety net and appears to have protected some families against indigence. Despite this success, the continued existence...

Dominant development policy approaches recommend women's employment on the grounds that it facilitates their empowerment, which in turn is believed to be instrumental in enhancing women's well-being. However, empirical work on the relationship between women's employment status and their well-being as measured by freedom from marital violence yields...

The south Indian state of Tamil Nadu is a relatively recent entrant to the list of Indian states exhibiting the phenomenon of ‘missing girls’. A substantial proportion of these missing girls may be attributed to the differential survival of girls and boys in the 0-6 age group due to daughter elimination in the form of sex selection, neglect and i...