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AbstractInjectables are one of the most popular methods of contraception worldwide, particularly in sub‐Saharan Africa. An advantage of injectables over shorter‐acting methods is that they provide additional flexibility by not requiring re‐supply as frequently. However, there is a risk that injectable users may delay their next injection and may therefore have reduced or no protection from pregnancy. In surveys, women may report that they are using contraception in the form of injectables when the time since they had their last injection (more than four months) would imply that they have reduced protection against the risk of pregnancy. We carried out two field studies in urban Malawi, and we record reported injectable contraceptive use while also asking the number of months since women received their last injection. We observe that 13.8 percent of women who report using injectables also report that they received their last injection more than four months ago, and 11 percent report that they received their last injection more than six months ago. Our analysis highlights the need for additional follow‐up with women who report using injectables in surveys to confirm whether they are, in fact, using the method effectively.

AbstractWhile there is a large literature on the prevalence of unmet need for family planning, there is no matching quantitative evidence on the prevalence of unwanted family planning; all contraceptive use is assumed to represent a "met need." This lack of evidence raises concerns that some observed contraceptive use may be undesired and coercive. We provide estimates of unwanted family planning using Demographic and Health Survey data collected from 1,546,987 women in 56 low‐ and middle‐income countries between 2011 and 2019. We estimate the prevalence of unwanted family planning, defined as the proportion of women who report wanting a child in the next nine months but who are using contraception. We find that 12.2 percent of women have an unmet need for family planning, while 2.1 percent have unwanted family planning, with estimated prevalence rates ranging from 0.4 percent in Gambia to 7.1 percent in Jordan. About half of unwanted family planning use can be attributed to condoms, withdrawal, and abstinence. Estimating the prevalence of unwanted family planning is difficult given current data collection efforts, which are not designed for this purpose. We recommend that future surveys probe the reasons for the use of family planning.

We investigate the consequences of various types of infrastructure provision in a panel of countries from 1950 to 1992. We develop new tests which enable us to isolate the sign and direction of long‐run effects in a manner that is robust to the presence of unknown heterogeneous short‐run causal relationships. We show that while infrastructure does tend to cause long‐run economic growth, there is substantial variation across countries. We also provide evidence that each infrastructure type is provided at close to the growth‐maximizing level on average globally, but is under‐supplied in some countries and over‐supplied in others.

Health is a direct source of human welfare and also an instrument for raising income levels. The authors discuss a number of mechanisms through which health can affect income, focusing on worker productivity, children's education, savings and investment, and demographic structure. As well as the impact of current illness, health may have large effects on prospective life spans and life cycle behavior. Studies suggest there may be a large effect of health and nutrition in uteri, and in the first few years of life, on physical and cognitive development and economic success as an adult. Macroeconomic evidence for an effect on growth is mixed, with evidence of a large effect in some studies. However, there is a possibility that gains from health may be outweighed by the effect of increased survival on population growth, until a fertility transition occurs. The low cost of some health interventions that have large-scale effects on population health makes health investments a promising policy tool for growth in developing countries. In addition, higher priority could be given to tackling widespread 'neglected' diseases that is, diseases with low mortality burdens that are not priorities from a pure health perspective, but that do have substantial effects on productivity.