Mosquitos: The Long-term effects of malaria eradication in India, a (relatively) recent paper by Cutler, Fung, Kremer, and Singhal at Harvard University finds that
Malaria eradication resulted in gains in literacy and primary school completion
of approximately 12 percentage points. [from the abstract]
Big effects: it’s about half of all the education improvement over this time period.
I took ill in 2005 with the malaria strain caused by the parasite plasmodium falciparum, which “is associated with the most severe forms of malaria and accounts for most malaria fatalities” (p5). I got out of the hospital two days before my dissertation defense: I think it might actually have helped me, but I’m willing to view that as an exception.
David Evans' personal blog 