Research:
Clean Water Makes You Dirty: Water Supply and Sanitation Behavior
in the Philippines (forthcoming: Journal of Human Resources)
Water supply investments in developing countries may inadvertently worsen sanitation if clean water and sanitation are substitutes. This paper examines the negative correlation between the provision of piped water and household sanitary behavior in Cebu, the Philippines. In a model of household sanitation, a local externality leads to a sanitation complementarity that magnifies the compensatory response. Empirical results are consistent with the hypotheses that clean water and sanitation are substitutes and that neighbors' sanitation levels are complements. In this situation, clean water may have large unintended consequences.
Health Care Competition, Antibiotic Use, and Antibiotic Resistance (under review)
(with Tsai-Ling Lauderdale and Che-Lun Hung)
Antibiotic resistance has emerged as a serious threat to public health. Health care competition may exacerbate antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance by accentuating the incentive for physicians to attract patients with antibiotics. We examine the effect of competition on antibiotic use in a large outpatient panel from Taiwan. An increase in competition of one standard deviation is associated with up to 2.4 percent greater antibiotic use. Multiple complementary results, including regressions with patient and physician fixed effects and two theoretically-derived interactions, support a causal interpretation of this finding. A calibration shows a meaningful effect on drug resistance.
Learning During a Crisis: the SARS Epidemic in Taiwan (NBER Working Paper 16955; under review)
(with Chun-Fang Chiang and Anup Malani)
When SARS struck Taiwan in the spring of 2003, many people feared that the disease would spread through the health care system. As a result, outpatient medical visits fell by over 30 percent in the course of a few weeks. This paper examines how both public information (SARS incidence reports) and private information (the behavior and opinions of peers) contributed to this public reaction. We identify social learning through a difference-in-difference strategy that compares longtime community residents to recent arrivals, who are less socially connected. We find that people learned from both public and private sources during SARS. A dynamic simulation based on the regressions shows that social learning magnified and lengthened the response to SARS.
The Collateral Health Impact of SARS in Taiwan (draft coming soon)
(with Chun-Fang Chiang and David Meltzer)
Competition and Drug Quality among Indian Retail Pharmacies
(with Wesley Yin)
Antiretroviral Therapy and Perceptions of HIV Risk in Malawi
(with Victoria Baranov)