This paper aims to assess whether a causal effect exists between maternal education and child survival in Madagascar. The omission of factors such as mother's health, innate ability and time preferences could lead to an overestimation of the true effect of education. The case of sub-Saharan Africa where child mortality rates are the highest, is overlooked by most of the causal evidence gathered so far for developing countries. The present paper attempts to redress this omission through the adoption of a careful empirical strategy. The analysis sheds light on the mechanisms at stake based on information on hygiene practices, housing conditions and the health care administered before, during and after childbirth. The results demonstrate that mothers' education has a positive and strong effect on their offsprings' survival probabilities. Wealth on its own has a strong effect but seems to account for only a third of the effect of maternal education.
Background and aims
Problem gambling can lead to a myriad of harmful consequences, including unmanageable amounts of debt and serious financial problems. The aim of this study was to examine whether changes in the number of electronic gaming machine (EGM) venues within a local area (due to venue openings and closings) are associated with changes in the rates of serious financial problems.
Design
Area‐level longitudinal multivariate regressions controlling for possible confounders (fixed and time‐varying local area characteristics).
Setting
Australia's three largest states (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland), during the period 2011–18.
Participants
A total of 225 local areas (Statistical Area 3 level) within the three states.
Measurements
Serious financial problems were measured by administrative data on total number of personal insolvencies (bankruptcies, debt agreements and insolvency agreements) in each local area per annum. The number of EGM venues in each local area was the regressor of primary interest. Area‐level covariates included the number of non‐gaming pubs and clubs, unemployment rate, population count, local area dummies, local area linear time trends and a separate set of state dummies for each year.
Findings
A one‐venue decrease over time within a local area decreased the number of personal insolvencies by 1.8 per year [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.4–3.2]. The result is robust to alternative specifications, including allowing for geographical spillovers (β = 2.2, 95% CI = 0.7–3.7), temporal lagged effects (β = 1.6, 95% CI = 0.6–2.8) and the spatial variability of venues within areas (β = 2.7, 95% CI = 0.9–4.5).
Conclusions
There is a positive association between the number of gaming venues in a local geographic area and the number of personal insolvencies in that area. Reducing the number or accessibility of gaming venues could help to reduce financial harms associated with problem gambling.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.