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The role of institutions in environment–health outcomes Nexus: empirical evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

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Abstract

This study investigates the role of institutions in environment–health outcomes nexus in sub-Saharan African over the period 1996–2016. The study employs different surrogates for capturing the three key variables of concern. These include institutions consisting of control of corruption, government effectiveness, and regulatory quality; environment comprising of carbon emissions and ecological footprints; and health outcomes involving human longevity, child mortality and health expenditures respectively. The study is based its empirical estimations on system of generalized method of moments, of which the following findings are established: First, environmental degradation captured with carbon emissions and ecological footprint is found to reduce human life expectancy by substantial statistical magnitudes. Second, carbon emissions are found to amplify the infant mortality rates, even when the variable interacts with institutional quality variables like government ineffectiveness and poor regulatory quality. Third, both carbon emissions and ecological footprint are found to escalate the cost of health expenditure, but with the dominating influence of the former over that of the latter. Fourth, the defective nature of the African institutional environment receives further empirical validation. Lastly, some other auxiliary variables specific to each health surrogate are also acknowledged. On the policy ground, reducing carbon emissions and strengthening institutional environment hold the key to improving health and other health-related outcomes.

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Source: Spring 2015 Global Attitudes Survey

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Notes

  1. Some of the observed effects of increasing average global temperature are glacier retreat, changes in seasonal events timing, agricultural productivity, climate extreme, decrease in Arctic sea ice, rising sea level, etc. (Cramer et al. 2014; Settele et al. 2014). Recently, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi experienced a deadliest tropical cyclone (Cyclone Idai) where millions of people were being displayed, more than 1000 dead (Mozambique—602, Zimbabwe—344 and Malawi—59), 4000 cholera cases, and thousands missing (Aljazeera and News Agencies 2019).

  2. The country with the world economic power is the second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere standing behind China. At present, US ceased to abide or implement the non-binding Paris Climate Agreement.

  3. The agreement signed by 195 members within the framework of the United Nation Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to deal with reduction, adaptation and financing of greenhouse gas (GHG) by the year 2020. The aim is to keep the increasing average global temperature below 2 °C.

  4. The US conference of Mayors and some of her citizens oppose the President’s decision and they promised to provide efforts to reduce carbon emitted into the atmosphere at city and state levels.

  5. Particulate matter is a dangerous pollutant in form of dust emitted into the atmosphere as its disappearance depends on the size of the particles. The bigger one can be taken down easily by gravity or being washed away by rain while the smaller ones can stay longer and easily be transported over long distance.

  6. The recommended level of PM2.5 by WHO was set at about 10 μg per cubicmeter. Only the North America region meet up with the requirement but approximately 30% of its citizens are still exposed.

  7. The list of countries in this category are Burundi, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo Dem. Rep., Comoros, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Togo, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

  8. They are Angola, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Congo Republic, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritania, Nigeria, São Tomé and Principe, Swaziland and Zambia.

  9. Only six SSA countries have positive average values from 1996 to 2016. The countries are Mauritius, Seychelles, Cape Verde, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

  10. The human health measures used by these studies were predominantly infant and child mortality rate.

  11. Examples of previous studies with a positive relationship between health expenditure and life expectancy are Chen and Ching (2000), Asiskovitch (2010), Novignon et al. (2012), Obrizan and Wehby (2012), Kim and Lane (2013), Deshpande et al. (2014), Jaba et al. (2014), and Balan (2016) among others.

  12. Past studies that have supported this hypothesis that high income tends to improve life expectancy are Issaoui et al. (2015), Chen and Ching (2000), Kim and Lane (2013), and Balan (2016), etc.

  13. Studies such as Filmer and Pritchett (1999), Gupta et al. (1999), Kaufmann et al. (1999), Gupta et al. (2000), Rajkumar and Swaroop (2008), Olafsdottir et al. (2011), Farag et al. (2012), and Hu and Mendoza (2013) that considered the role of institutions on health status were not under the environmental quality-mortality nexus. Most were conducted through the public healthcare expenditure channel.

  14. This is not surprising because of her past experience of civil war and the recent Ebola outbreaks which have severe effects on the life of an average Sierra Leonean.

  15. Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their insightful comments throughout the reviewing process of this research article. Their comments have immensely improved this study’s quality in many ways and saved us from errors, although, any other mistakes are entirely our own responsibility.

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  1. Department of Economics, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria

    Olorunfemi Yasiru Alimi & Kazeem Bello Ajide

  2. Department of Economics and Development Studies, Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Olorunfemi Yasiru Alimi

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 9, 10, 11, and 12.

Table 9 Correlation matrix of environment and institution determinants of life expectancy
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Table 10 Correlation matrix of environment and institution determinants of child mortality
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Table 11 Correlation matrix of environment and institution determinants of health expenditure
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Table 12 Correlation matrix of environment and institution determinants of health outcomes
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Alimi, O.Y., Ajide, K.B. The role of institutions in environment–health outcomes Nexus: empirical evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. Econ Change Restruct 54, 1205–1252 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10644-020-09299-0

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