GoHelP looks forward to visiting PhD student Mehmet Kutluay's seminar:
The Economics Benefits of Avoiding Malaria due to Climate Change
Date: Monday September 26th, 1:30-2:50pm.
Location: EV3 Room 3412
Abstract: Malaria prevalence is projected to increase worldwide due to climate change, as once dry and cool areas become warm and moist. For sound policies, the benefits of avoiding malaria need to be estimated. Benefits, taken as the willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid/treat the disease, have been extensively explored in multiple areas before. The outputs from the resulting studies are summarized in a meta-analysis (first chapter of the PhD). However this meta-analysis is limited since all the studies were carried out in places where malaria is well known. In the context of climate change, malaria is projected to occur in places where it has not occurred before (or has been previously eradicated). To address this, a survey was carried out in Mumbai, India to estimate the WTP to prevent malaria in the face of: 1) new information regarding prevalence and 2) different objective/subjective risks of becoming ill. The preliminary results on the estimated WTP will be presented along with a discussion on policy implications.
Short bio: Mehmet Kutluay is doing a PhD in environmental economics at the VU University Amsterdam since 2014. His research is on the economic benefits of avoiding future incidences of malaria. Prior to his PhD, he finished a research masters in economics at the Tinbergen Institute in Amsterdam, Netherlands