Malaria and Economic Development: Panel Evidence from Fourteen Endemic Countries

This study examines the relationship between malaria burden and real income using a balanced panel of fourteen malaria-endemic countries observed annually from 2015 to 2024, giving 140 country-year observations. The countries are India and Cambodia in Asia and Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia in sub-Saharan Africa. The outcome variable is the natural logarithm of real GDP per capita in constant 2015 US dollars, and the main explanatory variable is the natural logarithm of malaria incidence, so its coefficient is an elasticity. The analysis uses pooled, random-effects and fixed-effects estimators, selects the fixed-effects model with a robust Mundlak test, and reports both country-clustered and Driscoll-Kraay standard errors. Two findings emerge. First, considered on its own, malaria burden has a negative and statistically significant relationship with income, with an elasticity of approximately -0.06. Second, this relationship disappears almost entirely once broad development indicators enter the model. After accounting for urbanization and sanitation, malaria has no reliable independent negative effect on income within countries over the decade. The study therefore interprets malaria burden and income as moving together as part of a wider development process, rather than concluding that malaria has no bearing on prosperity.