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Community Based Development Program
Type
applied research project
Start Date
01 March 2007
Status
ongoing
Keywords
Developing Economies
Health Policy
Employment Policy
Education Policy
Programme Evaluation
Applied Pseudo Panel Data techniques
Demographic and Health Surveys
Description
Research initiative joint with Prof. Dr. Markus Frölich (SIAW and University of Mannheim).The aim of the project is to develop a (long term) research environment for the evaluation of socio-economic policy interventions in developing economies and in the fields of health, employment and education. There exists a large body of data from Sub-Saharan economies mostly based on cross-sectional surveys that are countrywide representatives but fail to offer follow up interviews for the same individuals over time. This lack of ‘Panel data' format is often the reason why policy evaluation may be conducted at the macroeconomic level where estimation of dynamic effects requires only available aggregates. The effects of the socio-economic policies, on the other hand, are subject to idiosyncratic behaviour that changes according to sub-groups in the population. Thus, idiosyncratic effects require dynamic analysis that deals with data at the microeconomic level. In our project we aim at using quasi-aggregation at cluster level to convert cross-sectional data (e.g., DHS data) into panel data that follows clusters over time. Our empirical analysis targets estimation of policy effects (e.g., information campaigns, provision of free primary school, micro-credit creation) on health outcomes, educational outcomes and employment outcomes. First working paper: HIV/AIDS-Knowledge and behaviour: Have information campaigns reduced HIV infection? The case of Kenya (joint work with Markus Froelich) - see working paper series below
Leader contributor(s)
Vazquez-alvarez, Rosalia
Froelich, Markus
Partner(s)
Professor Dr. Markus Froelich, University of Mannheim, Germany
Funder(s)
Topic(s)
Applied Socio-Economic research at the micro-economic level in developing economies with emphasis on Sub-Saharan Economies
Method(s)
Applied Micro-econometric methods to Cross-Sectiona data. Intention in the long run is to apply micro-econometric method to Pseudo-constructed Panel data from non-repeated cross-sections.
Range
Institute/School
Range (De)
Institut/School
Division(s)
Eprints ID
44126
Reference Number
Richard Büchner Stiftung
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PublicationHIV/AIDS Knowledge and Behaviour: Have Information Campaigns Reduced HIV Infection? The Case of Kenya(Blackwell Publishing, 2008-07-01)
;Vazquez-alvarez, RosaliaFroelich, MarkusAIDS continues to have a devastating effect on developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. The lack of a proven effective vaccine to stop HIV transmission has lead to much of public policy putting an emphasis on information campaigns in order to reduce HIV-prevalence. In this paper we examine the impact of HIV/AIDS-knowledge from two sides. First, we examine to what extent the campaigns have been successful at inducing the expected behavioural change with regards to HIV-related attitudes. Second, we examine the impact of HIV/AIDS knowledge on HIV status. The basic policy issue can be expressed as follows: even if individuals have acquired sufficient and necessary information on the basic facts about AIDS, factors such as innate risk attitudes or cultural background could undermine the effects of the campaigns. Using the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (2003) we elicit empirical evidence on the relation between declared HIV/AIDS-knowledge, behavioural attitudes related to HIV/AIDS situations and the relation between knowledge and observed HIV-status. Overall, our empirical findings suggest that information campaigns have been effective at equipping the adult population in Kenya with the required knowledge to avoid becoming HIV-positive. However, when HIV-status is measured objectively we find that the relation between correctly declared attitudes and actual behaviour is only statistically significant for females that have arrived into sexuality late enough to benefit from such campaigns: it is for these females that the impact of the information campaigns has been to statistically reduce the probability of becoming HIV-positive, as intended. In the case of males we find that there is no statistical relation between either knowledge or timing of the information campaigns and a positive HIV-status. Nevertheless, another important finding refers to the selection bias induced by males who are sampled randomly but decline to take the HIV-test. The consequences of this bias are twofold; first, the estimated policy parameters for males should be interpreted with caution, but more importantly, estimating the population level HIV-prevalence for Kenyan males based on the DHS implies underestimating the true and unknown prevalence rate. Our analysis controls for individual characteristics, selection bias and endogeneity effects thus allowing us to make inferences for the full population and with regards to policy implementation.Type: newspaper articleJournal: African Development ReviewVolume: 21Issue: 1