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dc.contributor.advisorMcCarl, Bruce A.
dc.creatorMusumba, Mark
dc.date.accessioned2012-10-19T15:30:01Z
dc.date.accessioned2012-10-22T18:02:05Z
dc.date.available2014-11-03T19:49:14Z
dc.date.created2012-08
dc.date.issued2012-10-19
dc.date.submittedAugust 2012
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2012-08-11504
dc.description.abstractTo achieve economic development, regional authorities have to address issues that relate to climate change, efficient information flow in the market place, and health care. This dissertation presents three essays on current issues of concern to economic development in Africa. Climate change is examined in terms of its effects on the Egyptian agricultural sector; transmission of world price to small scale growers is examined in Uganda; and the benefits of insecticide-treated bed nets use is examined in Africa. In essay I, to address the impact of climate change on the Egyptian agricultural sector under alternative population growth rates, water use and crop yield assumption; the Egyptian Agricultural Sector Model (EASM) is updated and expanded to improve hydrological modeling and used to portray agricultural activity and hydrological flow. The results indicate that climate change will cause damages (costs) to the Egyptian agricultural sector and these will increase over time. Egypt may reduce these future damages by controlling its population growth rate and using water conservation strategies. In essay II, I use vector autoregressive analysis to examine the transmissions of price information to Uganda coffee growers; using monthly coffee price data on retail, futures, farmgate and world prices from 1994 to 2010. Improved transmission of world prices to farmers may increase their decision making to obtain a better market price. Directed acyclic graphs reveal that there is a causal flow of information from the indicator price to the London futures price to the Uganda grower?s price in contemporaneous time. Forecast error variance decomposition indicates that at moving ahead 12 months, the uncertainty in Uganda grower price is attributable to the indicator price (world spot price), own price (farmgate), London future and Spain retail price in rank order. In essay III, the cost of malaria in children under five years and the use of insecticide treated bed nets is examined in the context of 18 countries in Africa. I examine the direct and indirect cost of malaria in children under five years and the benefit of investing in insecticide treated mosquito nets as a preventative strategy in 18 African countries. The results indicate that the use of mosquito treated nets reduces the number of malaria cases in children; and this can induce 0.5% reduction in outpatient treatment costs, 11% reduction in inpatient treatment costs, 11% reduction in productivity loss, and 15% reduction in disability adjusted life years (DALY) annually.en
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.subjectClimate changeen
dc.subjectagricultural water useen
dc.subjectpopulation growthen
dc.subjectdirected acyclic graphsen
dc.subjectvector autoregressionen
dc.subjectUganda coffee growersen
dc.subjectprice transmissionen
dc.subjectmalaria and childrenen
dc.subjectcosts and benefitsen
dc.subjectpanel data estimationen
dc.subjectmosquito bednetsen
dc.titleThree Essays on Economic Development in Africaen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.departmentAgricultural Economicsen
thesis.degree.disciplineAgricultural Economicsen
thesis.degree.grantorTexas A&M Universityen
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen
dc.contributor.committeeMemberMjelde, James
dc.contributor.committeeMemberWu, Ximing
dc.contributor.committeeMemberNorth, Gerald R.
dc.type.genrethesisen
dc.type.materialtexten
local.embargo.terms2014-10-22


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