Malaria's Last Mile and Liberalism

Abstract Liberal political and economic institutions shorten anti-malaria campaigns, which can reduce morbidity and mortality. Following the economic literature on institutions and public health, liberal institutions allow individuals to acquire more desirable private and public goods, which hastens elimination—a problem some refer to as malaria’s last mile. With data on time-to-elimination, various measures of institutions, and relevant covariates, we develop Cox proportional hazard models and robustness checks assessing whether liberal political and economic institutions shorten malaria’s last mile. These results indicate liberal institutions have discernable effects on fighting malaria, effects that complement on-going, concerted efforts to eliminate the disease. JEL Codes: I15, I18, P50