Ottar Maestad

• Dr oecon
• Chr. Michelsen Institute

Background Adolescent pregnancies pose a risk to young mothers and their babies. In Zambia, one third of 18-year-old girls have given birth. Poverty, low secondary school enrolment, misinformation, and community norms contribute to early childbearing. We assessed the effectiveness of economic support alone and combined with comprehensive sexuality...

Background The success of payment for performance (P4P) schemes relies on their ability to generate sustainable changes in the behaviour of healthcare providers. This paper examines short-term and longer-term effects of P4P in Tanzania and the reasons for these changes. Methods We conducted a controlled before and after study and an embedded proce...

This report provides data on household wellbeing in countries in sub-Saharan Africa following the Covid-19 pandemic. The focus is on employment and income, food security, and coping mechanisms, and on access to education and health care.

Background: Adolescent pregnancies pose a risk to the young mothers and their babies. In Zambia, 35% of young girls in rural areas have given birth by the age of 18 years. Pregnancy rates are particularly high among out-of-school girls. Poverty, low enrolment in secondary school, myths and community norms all contribute to early childbearing. This...

Background: Despite widespread implementation across Africa, there is limited evidence of the effect of payment for performance (P4P) schemes in low income countries on the coverage of quality services and affordability, consistent with universal health coverage objectives. We examined the effect of a government P4P scheme on utilisation, quality,...

Multiple principles are relevant in priority setting, two of which are often considered particularly important. According to the greater benefit principle, resources should be directed toward the intervention with the greater health benefit. This principle is intimately linked to the goal of health maximization and standard cost-effectiveness analy...

The use of supply-side incentives to increase health service utilisation and enhance service quality is gaining momentum in many low- and middle-income countries. However, there is a paucity of evidence on the impact of such schemes, their cost-effectiveness, and the process of implementation and potential unintended consequences in these settings....

This article analyses (1) how financial incentives (salary top-ups) and non-financial incentives (housing and education) affect nurses' willingness to work in remote areas of Tanzania and (2) how the magnitude of the incentives needed to attract health workers varies with the nurses' geographic origin and their intrinsic motivation. A contingent va...

The dynamics of childhood vaccination uptake in developing countries are unclear. Numerous studies document the relationship between vaccination coverage and access, socio economic and demographic factors. However, there is less knowledge about the relationship between vaccination coverage and carers' motivation and willingness to seek childhood va...

Informal payments for health services are common in many transitional and developing countries. The aim of this paper is to investigate the nature of informal payments in the health sector of Tanzania and to identify mechanisms through which informal payments may affect the quality of health care. Our focus is on the effect of informal payments on...

Childhood vaccination is a powerful tool for reducing morbidity and premature deaths, and vaccines are usually provided for free. Despite this, several low‐ and middle‐income countries are lagging far behind in terms of their vaccination coverage. This article uses insights from behavioural economics to shed light on the mechanisms at work when peo...

The shortage of health workers in many low-income countries poses a threat to the quality of health services. When the number of patients per health worker grows sufficiently high, there will be insufficient time to diagnose and treat all patients adequately. This paper tests the hypothesis that high caseload reduces the level of effort per patient...

The implementation of decentralisation reforms in the health sector of Tanzania started in the 1980s. These reforms were intended to relinquish substantial powers and resources to districts to improve the development of the health sector. Little is known about the impact of decentralisation on recruitment and distribution of health workers at the d...

In order to incorporate distributional concerns into cost-effectiveness analysis, it would be useful to elicit distributional weights that express people's valuation of marginal health gains at various levels of health. Distributional preferences are commonly elicited either through a person trade off (PTO) or a gain trade off (GTO) technique. An i...

The overall human resource shortages and the distributional inequalities in the health workforce in many developing countries are well acknowledged. However, little has been done to measure the degree of inequality systematically. Moreover, few attempts have been made to analyse the implications of using alternative measures of health care needs in...

SNF project no 1155 Miljøavtaler og energimarkeder (Environment agreements and energy markets) The project is financed by Statoil ASA SIØS -Centre for International Economics and Shipping INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION BERGEN, JANUARY 2004 ISSN 1503-2140 © Dette eksemplar er fremstilt etter avtale med KOPINOR, Stene...

This study analyzes the trade flows of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) both among its member countries and with the rest of the world for the 1997-2002 and 2003-2007 periods. In this paper, the research question is whether the trade flows of the GCC countries with their partners have sustained and/or they have developed new relations over time,...

Maximising health as the guiding principle for resource allocation in health has been challenged by concerns about the distribution of health outcomes. There are few empirical studies that consider these potentially divergent objectives in settings of extreme resource scarcity. The aim of this study is to help fill this knowledge gap by exploring d...

A number of low- and middle-income countries have a severe shortage of health workers. This paper studies how health workers' choices of labour supply and work effort impact on the quality of health services when health workers are in short supply. We analyse how policy measures such as monetary incentives, monitoring, provisions of quality-enhanci...

Background: Informal payments for health services are common in many transition and developing countries. Informal payments are often claimed to reduce the access to health services, but the impact on the quality of care is more ambiguous. Objective: The objective of the study is to investigate the nature of informal payments in the health sector i...

This paper analyses how tradable emission permits should be allocated to firms when capital is internationally mobile. When international environmental problems are attempted solved through uncoordinated policies between countries, it might be desirable for the home country to issue free emission permits in proportion to the use of capital in order...

NORAD is currently developing a trade strategy towards developing countries. This background note presents a review of the current literature and empirical findings on the relationship between trade, growth and poverty reduction. There is also a review of the Aid for Trade debate. Opening up an economy to international trade increases the income of...

Performance-based funding has been proposed as one mechanism to speed up the implementation of interventions for reduced maternal and newborn mortality. This report investigates the potential role of such funding mechanisms in increasing maternal and newborn survival in Tanzania. Less than 50% of deliveries in Tanzania take place at a health facili...

With implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, Russia will most likely be able to exert market power in the emission permit market. But, as Russia is also a big exporter of fossil fuels, the incentives to boost the permit price may be weak. However, a significant share of Russia’s fossil fuel exports is natural gas. If a high permit price boosts the de...

Maximising health as the guiding principle for resource allocation in health has been challenged by concerns about the distribution of health outcomes. There are few empirical studies which consider these potentially divergent objectives in settings of extreme resource scarcity. The aim of this study is to fill some of this knowledge gap by explori...

The paper analyses optimal strategies for a country that has market power in an international market for emission permits at the same time as a domestic fuel producer participates in a non-competitive fuel export market. In particular, the effects of coordinating fuel and permit exports are explored. We show that such coordination may either increa...

The number of health workers in Tanzania has declined sharply over the last decade. The present number of health personnel in Tanzania is low both by international standards and relative to national staffing norms, and an even greater shortage of health workers is expected in the future. Due to geographical imbalance in the distribution of health w...

In the presence of preexisting distortionary taxes, it is often argued that auctioned emission permits are preferable to non-auctioned permits, because the former generate revenues that may be used to reduce other taxes. This paper shows that when capital is internationally mobile, it may be optimal to use a combination of non-auctioned and auction...

Because the sanction mechanisms under the Marrakesh Accords affect the economy of complying countries, strategic considerations may play a role in decisions taken by members of the Enforcement Branch of the Kyoto Protocol. We show that members of the Enforcement Branch might face various incentives to not punish a non-compliant country, and that th...

SNF project no 1305 Global climate policy, changes in demand patterns and new technological developments The project is financed by The Research Council of Norway and The Norwegian Shipowners' Association SIØS -Centre for International Economics and Shipping INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION BERGEN, DECEMBER 2005 ISSN...

The steel industry is one of the largest sources of global CO2 emissions and hence a candidate for climate policies. A carbon tax on emissions in industrialized countries, however, will cause relocation of steel production to non-industrialized countries, and because of their relatively high emission intensities the effect on total emissions is amb...

Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol is likely to leave Russia and other Eastern European countries with market power in the market for emission permits. Ceteris paribus, this will raise the permit price above the competitive permit price. However, Russia is also a large exporter of fossil fuels. A high price on emission permits may lower the produ...

The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are the poorest countries in the world. Their share of world trade has declined from 0.8% in 1980 to less than 0.5% today. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact on the LDCs of getting duty- and quota-free access to their main export markets. Our conclusion is that the aggregate benefits are likely...

The consequences of the Kyoto Protocol for the fossil fuel markets depend on which policy instruments are used in order to reach the emission targets. This paper uses a numerical model to assess the significance of international emissions trading for the oil, coal and gas markets. Three different trading regimes are compared. Particular attention i...

Applying a newly developed CGE‐model, we present scenarios for the future economic geography of Europe. The model divides the world into ten regions, five of which are European, and 14 industries, of which 12 are imperfectly competitive. With a complete input‐output structure, the model captures comparative advantage mechanisms as well as intra‐ind...

This report explores the potential for increasing imports to Norway from its main development partners. The analysis is based on three main indicators: i) a trade intensity index (commodities which the development partners are exporting, but where Norway is importing relatively less than similar OECD countries); ii) the peak tariff rates (commoditi...

Timber trade restrictions have been proposed as a means to reducing tropical deforestation. This paper analyses the consequences of such trade interventions, emphasising the effects on logging behaviour and the allocation of land between forestry and alternative activities (e.g. agriculture). Tropical forestry is modelled as the mining of a heterog...

A major concern in the design of an incomplete climate agreement is thatfirms that use fossil fuels intensively may respond to emission regulationsby relocating their plants from cooperating to non-cooperating countries.This paper analyses how the cooperating countries might deal with the issueof firm delocation through emission taxes, trade provis...

The consequences of the Kyoto Protocol for the fossil fuel markets depend on which policy instruments that are used in order to reach the emission targets. This paper uses a numerical model to assess the significance of international emission trading for the oil, coal and gas markets. Three different trading regimes are compared. Particular attenti...

The paper derives conditions for second best environmental policy when there are foreign countries which fail to implement appropriate environmental regulations. It is shown that in such cases, efficiency in the global economy will not be achieved unless domestic environmental regulations are supplemented by trade provisions. The result is independ...

Ottar Mæstad and Bertil Tungodden, ‘Is Poverty Costly for the Non-Poor?’, Forum for Development Studies, 1997:2, pp. 251–275. The article discusses the often neglected issue of how the existence of widespread poverty influences the living conditions of the non-poor part of the population. Particular attention is devoted to theories about how absolu...

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1. Abstract While it is often assumed in the economic literature that the Kyoto Protocol will be implemented through a cost-efficient comprehensive emissions trading system, the general experience from implementation of environmental policies suggests that governments will adopt a more differentiated approach. Emerging evidence on how the Kyoto Pro...

Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol is likely to leave Russia with market power in the market for emission permits. Ceteris paribus, this will increase the permit price relative to the competitive outcome. However, Russia is also a large exporter of gas in the European gas market. The higher is the permit price, the lower is the producer price of...

This report explores the potential for increasing imports to Norway from its main development partners. The analysis is based on three main indicators: i) a trade intensity index (commodities which the development partners are exporting, but where Norway is importing relatively less than similar OECD countries); ii) the peak tariff rates (commoditi...

This report reviews the performance of Haydom Lutheran Hospital (HLH), Tanzania. Focus is on HLH’s output and effectiveness as a hospital, HLH’s place in the Tanzanian health system, and on the role of HLH as a development agent. The report also discusses alternatives for sustained funding of the activities at HLH.

Inspired by a vision to build knowledge on how to implement high quality health care in low income contexts, Chr Michelsen Institute (CMI), Health Economics Bergen and the Centre for International Health (CIH) at the University of Bergen hosted an international workshop on Interventions for improved health worker performance on 14-15 May 2009. This...

Haydom Lutheran Hospital (HLH) is a first level referral hospital located in Mbulu district, Manyara region in Tanzania. HLH was established by the Norwegian Lutheran Mission in 1955 and is owned by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania (ELCT). HLH has over many years received substantial financial support from the Norwegian government throug...