Malaria and Economic Development in the Short-term: Plasmodium falciparum vs Plasmodium vivax

Malaria---a disease caused by parasitic microorganisms of the Plasmodium genus---has been shown to impede economic growth and socioeconomic development in the long-term. In this paper, we use annual regional data from India to show that malaria outbreaks are associated with an immediate decline in economic development approximated by night light intensity. We find the association to be significant for outbreaks of both the globally most prevalent Plasmodium species: Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax. The estimated associations are quite sizeable. Severe outbreaks correlate with night light reductions of 5% of the standard deviation for P. falciparum and 4% for P. vivax. This data set contains data for the paper replication.

疟疾（Malaria）是由疟原虫属（Plasmodium genus）寄生微生物引发的疾病，已有研究证实其会长期阻碍经济增长与社会经济发展。本研究采用印度年度区域数据，证实疟疾暴发与以夜间灯光亮度（night light intensity）表征的经济发展水平即时下降存在显著关联。我们发现，针对全球流行度最高的两种疟原虫——恶性疟原虫（Plasmodium falciparum）与间日疟原虫（Plasmodium vivax）——的暴发，该关联均具有统计学显著性。所估算得到的关联效应规模相当可观：恶性疟原虫引发的严重暴发会导致夜间灯光亮度下降幅度达标准差的5%，而间日疟原虫引发的严重暴发则会导致该降幅达标准差的4%。本数据集包含该论文复现研究所需的全部数据。