The extent of the economic burden of malaria and its imposed mechanisms are both relevant to public policy. This paper investigates the economic burden of malaria and household behaviour in relation to the treatment and prevention of the illness in Pakistan. In this regard, data were collected from a randomly selected sample of 360 households using structured questionnaires. The survey results indicate that 23.4% of household members contracted malaria during the three-month reference period. The average per person cost of malaria is estimated at 3116 Pakistani rupees (PKR) (USD 32). The estimated cost of the illness was found to be equivalent to, on average, 6.7% of monthly household income. Although high-income households face a higher financial burden due to better preventive and mitigation measures, the negative consequences hit low-income households harder due to liquidity constraints and poor access to effective treatment. We recommend that malaria control policies be integrated into development and poverty reduction programs.
Environmental degradation is frequently cited as one of the eminent issues in the modern era. To limit environmental degradation, prior literature discerns several macroeconomic, socio-economic, and institutional factors that affect environmental degradation. However, the relationship between geopolitical risk and environmental degradation is understudied in the previous literature. To fill this gap, the inquiry at hand aims to scrutinize the influence of geopolitical risk on environmental degradation for E7 countries while controlling the effect of renewable energy, non-renewable energy, and GDP. Further, we utilize both the ecological footprint and CO2 emissions as proxies of environmental degradation and employ second-generation panel methods for robust findings. In addition to this, the present study uses augmented mean group (AMG) estimator to provide long-run relationship among the selected variables. The findings from the AMG estimator expound that there exists environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for E7 countries. Moreover, renewable energy ameliorates environmental quality because it plunges both ecological footprint and CO2 emissions. On the contrary, non-renewable energy consumption escalates both ecological footprint and CO2 emissions. Finally, geopolitical risk tends to decrease CO2 emissions as well as ecological footprint. Our findings deduce a few policy implications to replenish environmental quality. For instance, the share of renewables in the energy mix should be surged to ameliorate the environmental quality. Further, to control both the geopolitical risk and environmental degradation at the same time, policymakers should put forward reforms and initiatives (e.g., policies to escalate R&D, technological innovations, and tax exemptions on imports of renewables) that can help to improve environmental quality without affecting geopolitical risk. At times of low geopolitical risk, environmental degradation will surge; therefore, the rate of environmental control taxes should be increased by the policymakers.