Research work

Research interests

Applied Microeconometrics, Health Economics, Labour Economics, Survey Research, Development Economics

Publications in peer-reviewed journals

1. "Differences between persons with and without disability in HIV prevalence, testing, treatment, and care cascade in Tanzania: a cross-sectional study using population-based data", (with D. Chipanta, S. Mitra, M.R. Velarde, k. Amekudzi, C. Osborne, J. Estill, O. Keiser), BMC Public Health, (2023)

2. "Socioeconomic inequalities in cervical precancer screening among women in Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe: analysis of Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment surveys ", (with D. Chipanta, S. Kapambwe, A.L. Nyondo-Mipando, M. Pascoe, J. Bohlius, J. Estill, O. Keiser), BMJ Open, (2023)

3. "Socioeconomic inequalities in the 90-90-90 target, among people living with HIV in 12 Sub-Saharan African countries, implications for achieving the 95-95-95 target - Analysis of population-based surveys", (with D. Chipanta, D. Giovenco, J. Estill & O. Keiser), The Lancet eClinicalMedicine, (2022).

4. "Women with disabilities in hearing: the last mile in the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV – a cross-sectional study from Zambia", (with D. Chipanta, H. Stöckl, E. Toska, P. Chanda, J. Mwanza, K. Kaila, C. Matome, G. Tembo, A. Thiabaud,  O. Keiser & J. Estill), AIDS Care, (2021)

Reports and other publications

1. "Essays on subjective well-being, health and consumption", PhD dissertation (2022)

2. "The gender pay gap in the health and care sector: A global analysis in the time of COVID-19", (with R. Vazquez-Alvarez and M. McIsaac), Joint Report by World Health Organization (WHO) & International Labour Organization (ILO), (2022).

3. "The migrant pay gap: Understanding wage differences between migrants and nationals", International Labour Office (ILO), (2020).

4. "The transition in play: Worldwide employment trends in the electricity sector", (with G. Montt and N. Maître), ILOWorking Paper no.28, International Labour Office (ILO), (2018)

Working papers and papers-in-progress

1. "The effect of health on the marginal utility of consumption: Evidence based on household consumption expenditure".

Abstract: 

This study uses broad-based measures of household consumption expenditure and a non-binary utility proxy to estimate the effect of health on the marginal utility of consumption using the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey's panel data. To do so, I estimate how observed within-individual utility change associated with a health shock varies across individuals of different consumption levels. I reject the null of health-state independence of utility and show that marginal utility of consumption increases as health deteriorates, implying that non-medical consumption, particularly consumption of essential goods such as food tends to buffer the negative effects of poor health on well-being. The results show that moving from a good-health state to a poor-health state raises marginal utility of consumption by 2.5 to 4.0 percentage points, depending on the measure of health.

2. "Assessing the direct relationship between experienced and evaluative well-being among older adults in the developing world", (with J. Maurer).

Abstract: 

This paper studies the direct association of evaluative well-being with experienced well-being. We apply an abbreviated version of the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) to assess the extent to which people's subjective assessment of their emotional affects during the course of a day (experienced well-being) is related to their self-reported general life satisfaction and quality of life (evaluative well-being). To identify a direct partial association, we account for common objective determinants of both forms of well-being and adjust for common individual reporting scales between the two by using vignettes for health-state description as a control function in a multivariable linear regression framework. The results show that both life satisfaction and quality of life are moderately and non-linearly associated with measures of experienced well-being. Furthermore, the results suggest that age appears to have a dampening effect on the association between the two forms of well-being but income does not appear to have such effect.

3. "Pain and subjective well-being among older people: A comprehensive assessment based on the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE)", (with J. Maurer).

Abstract:

This paper studies the association of pain with subjective well-being (SWB) and time use among older people in five low- and middle-income countries using the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health. We use anchoring vignettes in a form of a control function to account for for common rating behavior between self-reported pain and SWB. Using data on individual time use and several measures of SWB, including activity-specific affective experiences from an abbreviated version of the Day Reconstruction Method, we find that both evaluative and experienced well-being dimensions of SWB are markedly lower for people living with pain compared to those without pain. Further, pain-related differences in time use between people with pain and those without pain are shown as providing only a small compensating effect.