Initially, economic development increases resistance because migration of people to urban areas in developing countries increases incomes, crowding and the use of antibiotics. Also, developing countries often don't require prescriptions or distribute high quality antibiotics. In developed...

The increasing resistance of harmful biological organisms (bacteria, parasites, and pests) to selection pressure from the widespread use of control agents such as antibiotics, antimalarials, and pesticides is a serious problem in both medicine and agriculture. Modeling resistance —or,...

The employment of insecticides raises the relative fitness of resistant insects; the use of antibiotics applies selection pressure in favour of resistant strains of bacteria; lower limits on fish net mesh size raises the advantages of smaller adults. These are some of the many examples of the...

Considerable progress has been made towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) since 1990. Although advances in improving MDG 4 and MDG 5a (reducing child and maternal mortality, respectively) have been made, progress is some countries have been insufficient. While some...

This study examines the effect of abolishing user fees from health services on fertility and educational attainment as a test of the quantity-quality tradeoff model. Exploiting sudden improvements in nutritional status among South African children as an exogenous decline in price of quality...

In 2003 Kenya abolished user fees in all government primary schools. We find that this Free Primary Education (FPE) policy resulted in a decline in public school quality and increased demand for private schooling.  However, the former did not reflect a decline in value added by public schools -...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in <I>Journal of Health Economics</I> (2013). Volume 32, issue 6, pages 1180-93.<P> Public providers have no financial incentive to respect their legal obligation to exempt the poor from user fees. Health Equity Funds (HEFs) aim to make exemptions effective by...</p></i>

The Harbor Maintenance Tax is a fundamentally flawed maintenance funding mechanism for the critical US port system. Three alternatives were analyzed. User fee rates were estimated for either a national or regional tonnage based fee. Our results indicate that maintenance cost recovering regional...

In 2003 Kenya abolished user fees in all government primary schools. We find that this Free Primary Education (FPE) policy resulted in a decline in public school quality and increased demand for private schooling. However, the former did not reflect a decline in value added by public schools -...