| Public health crises are the most dramatic in developing countries, and this dissertation is concerned with two critical health issues: air pollution and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Both issues are extremely complex, with many players, regulations, and policies impacting millions (if not billions) of people worldwide. Research and knowledge is vitally important in the design of regulations and interventions to reduce the disease burden related to both air pollution and STIs, and I hope these essays are a step in the right direction.;These two issues are also related conceptually in economics because of externalities. Air pollution is the classic negative externality because firms or drivers that produce harmful air particulates generally do not incur the costs. Instead, people living near power plants, people living near highways, people with asthma, young children, elderly, tend to bear the brunt of the costs, often in the form of negative health impacts. Similarly, externalities play a large role in the transmission of STIs and the HIV epidemic. For example, risky sexual behaviors such as unprotected sex, anal sex, or sex with commercial sex workers have significant negative externalities beyond discomfort, stigma, or psychological effects on the parties involved. HIV transmission to an uninfected partner has substantial health consequences for that individual as well as an impact on the larger HIV epidemic. The externalities related to air pollution and sexual behavior are therefore key concepts in policymaking.;The first essay concerns New Source Review, a key component of the Clean Air Act in the United States in regulating ambient air pollution from coal-fired power plants. With the large amount of coal-fired generation in China and other countries, it is important to utilize knowledge from existing environmental regulations in the United States in the design of future regulations in developing countries. The second essay examines the effect of indoor air pollution from house-hold biomass fuel use on child mortality in Pakistan. The last two essays investigate risky sexual behaviors among a population of informal and formal commercial sex workers in Western Kenya. In particular, the final essay examines the relationship between sex work and income risk using a unique daily panel dataset. |
