Research Statement | ONS Accredited Researcher No 35345
Work in Progress
The Effects of the UK National Living Wage on Informal Caregiving
[ Abstract ]
The increasing ageing population and improvements in the life expectancy of children and young people needing care and support continuously require that family members and associates provide unpaid care. At the same time, declining public services and state welfare spending and expansionary labour market policies are putting pressure on unpaid carers. This study evaluates the effects of increasing wage floors on informal carers’ work hours and health. We considered the 2016 UK’s National Living Wage using the Coarsened Exact Matching and Difference-in-Differences methods on longitudinal data collected from the Understanding Society’s UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). Our findings show negative effects of becoming unpaid carer on wor hours and negative health effects. However, increasing the wage floor through the NLW did not make significant difference on the caring effects.
The Covid-19 Crisis and Subjective Wellbeing in Britain (with Chris Deeming).
[ Abstract ]
In this study we consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across four different dimensions of subjective wellbeing (SWB). In the analyses we pool 110 waves of Secure Access data from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey fielded by the UK’s Office for National Statistics. We consider the micro and macro aspects of institutional measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic on different measures of SWB, which include happiness, life satisfaction, worthwhileness and anxiety. Using the micro survey data, we consider the impact of micro measures to contain the spread of the virus on SWB, including the effects for workers on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and those working from home and home schooling. From a macro policy perspective, we evaluate the effects of aggregate governmental policy measures using the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker on SWB. Our findings show that both the micro and macro indicators of policy measures significantly predict SWB during the pandemic. Additionally, we find that SWB deteriorated significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic and has subsequently failed to return to the pre-pandemic levels after the ending of all public health restrictions in the UK, that signalled the end of the pandemic.
Publications
Infant mortality in England.
[ Summary | Report ]
The analysis, which was prepared by experts from the Child of the North group – a partnership between Health Equity North and N8 Research Partnership, found the most deprived parts of the country, the North of England and Black and Asian ethnic groups experienced an increase in infant mortality rates (IMR). The increase has been linked to risk factors such as prematurity, congenital anomalies, low birthweight, ethnicity, maternal age, deprivation, poverty and inequality.
Cite as: Akanni, Udu, Esan, Black et al. Infant mortality in England: August 2024. NHSA (2024). www.healthequitynorth.co.uk
Conflicting economic policies and mental health: evidence from the UK national living wage and benefits freeze (with Otto Lenhart and Alec Morton).
[ Abstract | Discussion paper | Article
This study evaluates the mental health effects of two simultaneously implemented but conflicting policies in the UK: the National Living Wage and the benefits freeze policy. We employed the Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) DID estimator to evaluate the heterogeneous policy effects, and we found that NLW leads to positive improvements in mental health. Also, we find the negative impact of the benefits freeze policy constricts the NLW effects. Our result is robust to the sensitivity analysis of the parallel trend assumption and the comparison group definition. Additional results support the psychosocial hypothesis that increased job satisfaction is strongly correlated with improvements in mental health. Also, we found evidence of substitution effects between work hours and leisure. Overall, our findings suggest that the effects of the NLW cannot be understood in isolation from the way the entire suite of policy instruments operates on earnings and liveable income for affected low wage workers.
Income trajectories and self-rated health status in the UK (with Otto Lenhart and Alec Morton). 2022. Social Science and Medicine - Population Health
[ Abstract | Paper ]
In line with the wide recognition of the connection between socioeconomic status and health outcomes, attention in the recent literature is extending the static perspective to the dynamic implications of income on health. This study contributes to the growing literature on the income-health nexus by evaluating income dynamics on various self-rated health measures in the UK. We explore the impact of different indicators of income experiences on self-rated health and wellbeing outcomes using data from the 11 Waves of Understanding Society UK Household Longitudinal Study between 2009 and 2019. First, we estimate a fixed-effects ordered logit model for various health and wellbeing measures, allowing us to control for unobserved time-invariant heterogeneity. Second, we evaluate the effects of income trajectories by linking longitudinal household income to cross-sectional health outcomes. Our results confirm the general evidence of positive impacts of increasing family income on health. Besides, we find that stability in income position is strongly associated with improved health and wellbeing. On the other hand, income volatility increases the odds of reporting poor health outcomes, particularly for those in low-income households. Also, more years spent in a lower-income quartile reduces the odds of reporting improved self-rated health. Finally, the significant difference in the estimated effects of income before and after 2016 highlights the significant shifts in the effects of income trajectories on self-reported health and wellbeing following the National Living Wage policy implementation.
Constructing a Global Fear Index for the COVID-19 Pandemic (with Afees A Salisu). 2020. Emerging Markets Finance and Trade
[ Abstract | Paper | Data]
This paper offers two main innovations. First, we construct a global fear index (GFI) for the COVID-19 pandemic to support economic, financial, and policy analyses in this area. Second, we demonstrate the application of the index to stock return predictability using OECD data. The panel data predictability results reveal the significance of the index as a good predictor of stock returns during the pandemic. Also, we find that accounting for “asymmetry” effect and macro (common) factors improves the forecast performance of the GFI-based predictive model for stock returns. With regular updates and improvements of the index, several empirical analyses can be extended to other macroeconomic fundamentals in future research.
Is Nigeria experiencing a learning crisis: Evidence from curriculum-matched learning assessment (with Adedeji Adeniran and Joseph Ishaku). 2020. International Journal of Educational Development
[ Abstract | Paper ]
Agenda 2030 sets an ambitious target to provide inclusive and quality education for all. The first step in this quest is identifying those left behind in accessing quality education and reasons for their exclusion. However, Nigeria like many developing countries lacks data on learning assessment to measure progress on Agenda 2030 at the national and sub-national levels. In this study, we construct a measure for the quality of education by matching curriculum with literacy and numeracy assessments based on existing education survey. In addition, we examine the drivers of quality education in Nigeria based on the newly constructed learning indicator. Our findings confirm Nigerian education system is indeed facing deep learning crisis with the affected children mostly from poor households, in the rural areas, those that attend government-owned schools, and those in the northern region of the country Nigeria. The results emphasized the need for systemic change that will improve school infrastructure, teacher training and ensure more parental involvement.
The COVID-19 global fear index and the predictability of commodity price returns (with Afees A Salisu and Ibrahim Raheem). 2020. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance
[ Abstract | Paper ]
In this paper, we subject the global fear index (GFI) for the COVID-19 pandemic to empirical scrutiny by examining its predictive power in the predictability of commodity price returns during the pandemic. One of the attractions to the index lies in its coverage as all the countries and by extension regions and territories in the world are considered in the construction of the index. Our results show evidence of a positive relationship between commodity price returns and the global fear index, confirming that commodity returns increase as COVID-19 related fear rises. By way of extension, we further establish that commodity market offers better safe-haven properties than the stock market given the negative association between GFI and the latter. Finally, the GFI series improves the forecast accuracy of the predictive model for commodity price returns and its forecast outcome outperforms the historical average (constant returns) model both for the in-sample and out-of-sample forecasts. Our results are robust to alternative measures of pandemics.
Returns and volatility spillover between food prices and exchange rate in Nigeria . 2020. Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies
[ Abstract | Paper ]
Purpose
Empirical studies have documented the linkage between exchange rate movement and food prices. However, the purpose of this study is to investigate the degree and direction of returns and volatility spillover transmission between exchange rate and domestic food prices in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses weekly data from January 2010 to January 2019. Also, the study adopts the improved Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) approach to evaluate the return and volatility spillover between food price and naira to dollar exchange rate. The study also account for 2016 exchange rate crash in the interconnectedness between food prices and naira to dollar exchange rate.
Findings
The paper finds evidence of directional interdependence among the considered food prices and exchange rate based on the obtained spillover indexes. In addition, exchange rate returns and volatility transmission to food prices is more than it receives, particularly after the exchange rate crash.
Research limitations/implications
The high consumption of staple foods requires policies on price stabilisation such as massive investment in local production and reduction in import dependence, in order to cushion the effects of exchange rate depreciation on domestic prices of food.
Originality/value
This study is the first empirical study to investigate the interconnectedness between exchange rate and domestic food prices for a food import–dependent developing country using the Diebold and Yilmaz approach.
Empirical studies have documented the linkage between exchange rate movement and food prices. However, the purpose of this study is to investigate the degree and direction of returns and volatility spillover transmission between exchange rate and domestic food prices in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses weekly data from January 2010 to January 2019. Also, the study adopts the improved Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) approach to evaluate the return and volatility spillover between food price and naira to dollar exchange rate. The study also account for 2016 exchange rate crash in the interconnectedness between food prices and naira to dollar exchange rate.
Findings
The paper finds evidence of directional interdependence among the considered food prices and exchange rate based on the obtained spillover indexes. In addition, exchange rate returns and volatility transmission to food prices is more than it receives, particularly after the exchange rate crash.
Research limitations/implications
The high consumption of staple foods requires policies on price stabilisation such as massive investment in local production and reduction in import dependence, in order to cushion the effects of exchange rate depreciation on domestic prices of food.
Originality/value
This study is the first empirical study to investigate the interconnectedness between exchange rate and domestic food prices for a food import–dependent developing country using the Diebold and Yilmaz approach.
Climatic variations and spatial price differentials of perishable foods in Nigeria . 2020. Econometric Research in Finance
[ Abstract | Paper ]
In this study, we attempt to examine the factors that explain the spatial price differentials of selected perishable food crops across Nigerian markets. Based on monthly market prices of onions and tomatoes across different States, we examine the implications of climatic variations, cost of transportation and differences in economic sizes on the price spread of these items. The empirical findings from the dynamic heterogeneous panel regressions show that these factors have significant long-run impacts on the difference in food prices across markets. The results highlight climatic differences and transportation costs are important factors in regional price spreads for agricultural commodities and hence the need for specific policies to reduce the prices variability. Policies geared towards improving agriculture value chain could offer pathways towards mitigating food loss and waste associated with changing climate and transfer costs, and thereby reduction in prices.