IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecr/col022/39315.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The cost of hunger: Social and economic impact of child undernutrition in Central America and the Dominican Republic

Author

Listed:
  • Martínez, Rodrigo
  • Fernández, Andrés

Abstract

This document presents the results derived from the analyses of the cost of undernutrition in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic. The study shows that not only are the effects reported valid for the countries of Central America and the Dominican Republic, but the resultant economic impact is also significant, representing between 1.7% and 11.4% of GDP. In this regard, productivity losses as a consequence of the higher death rate and the lower level of education account for 90% of the costs. Thus, in addition to the ethical imperative, eradicating undernutrition would yield benefits as well. Therefore, any programme that is effective in reducing the prevalence of this problem will have an impact on people's quality of life, and will also represent major savings for society. The greater the problem, the greater the challenge, but the greater the benefits as well, especially in terms of countries' production capacity.

Suggested Citation

  • Martínez, Rodrigo & Fernández, Andrés, 2008. "The cost of hunger: Social and economic impact of child undernutrition in Central America and the Dominican Republic," Documentos de Proyectos 39315, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    • Handle: RePEc:ecr:col022:39315
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repositorio.cepal.org/handle/11362/39315
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:wbk:wbpubs:12425 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. World Bank, 2005. "World Development Indicators 2005," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12426, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amanda Beatty & Evan Borkum & William Leith & Marisa Henry & Margo Berends & Clair Null & Nicholas Ingwersen, "undated". "MCC Indonesia Nutrition Project Impact Evaluation Final Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 177dad81487243d59a9fefbcf, Mathematica Policy Research.
    2. Galasso, Emanuela & Wagstaff, Adam, 2019. "The aggregate income losses from childhood stunting and the returns to a nutrition intervention aimed at reducing stunting," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 225-238.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simplice A. Asongu, 2014. "Knowledge Economy and Financial Sector Competition in African Countries," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 26(2), pages 333-346, June.
    2. Ahmet Faruk AYSAN & Mustapha Kamel NABLI & Marie‐Ange VÉGANZONÈS‐VAROUDAKIS, 2007. "Governance Institutions And Private Investment: An Application To The Middle East And North Africa," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 45(3), pages 339-377, September.
    3. Busse, Matthias & Hefeker, Carsten, 2007. "Political risk, institutions and foreign direct investment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 397-415, June.
    4. Montoya, Miguel A. & Trillas, Francesc, 2007. "The measurement of the independence of telecommunications regulatory agencies in Latin America and the Caribbean," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 182-190, September.
    5. Francisco Rodríguez, 2006. "Openness and Growth: What Have We Learned?," Wesleyan Economics Working Papers 2006-011, Wesleyan University, Department of Economics.
    6. Shunichi Fukuhara & Chikao Yamazaki & Yasuaki Hayashino & Takahiro Higashi & Margaret Eichleay & Takashi Akiba & Tadao Akizawa & Akira Saito & Friedrich Port & Kiyoshi Kurokawa, 2007. "The organization and financing of end-stage renal disease treatment in Japan," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 217-231, September.
    7. Alberto Chong & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, 2006. "Corporate Governance and Firm Value in Mexico," Research Department Publications 4466, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    8. Najarzadeh, Reza & Rahimzadeh, Farzad & Reed, Michael, 2014. "Does the Internet increase labor productivity? Evidence from a cross-country dynamic panel," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 986-993.
    9. Arvind Virmani, 2009. "China’s Socialist Market Economy: Lessons for Democratic Developing Countries," Working Papers id:1899, eSocialSciences.
    10. Mr. Subramanian S Sriram, 2009. "The Gambia: Demand for Broad Money and Implications for Monetary Policy Conduct," IMF Working Papers 2009/192, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Masako Ikefuji & Ryo Horii, 2007. "Wealth Heterogeneity and Escape from the Poverty–Environment Trap," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 9(6), pages 1041-1068, December.
    12. Darren Duxbury & Robert Hudson & Kevin Keasey & Zhishu Yang & Songyao Yao, 2013. "How prior realized outcomes affect portfolio decisions," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 41(4), pages 611-629, November.
    13. Wyplosz, Charles, 2006. "Regional exchange rate arrangements: the European experience," Copublicaciones, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), number 1927.
    14. J. Ram Pillarisetti & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2008. "Sustainable Nations: What do Aggregate Indicators tell us?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-012/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Christian Bjørnskov & Axel Dreher & Justina Fischer, 2008. "Cross-country determinants of life satisfaction: exploring different determinants across groups in society," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(1), pages 119-173, January.
    16. Christian Rogg, 2006. "Asset Portfolios in Africa: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-145, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Mihaela Simona Dogan, 2012. "Other Tools For Growth And Jobs Of Europe 2020 Strategy," Anale. Seria Stiinte Economice. Timisoara, Faculty of Economics, Tibiscus University in Timisoara, vol. 0, pages 404-406, November.
    18. Stephan Klasen, 2008. "Poverty, undernutrition, and child mortality: Some inter-regional puzzles and their implicationsfor research and policy," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(1), pages 89-115, March.
    19. Sami Bibi & Mustapha K. Nabli, 2009. "Income Inequality In The Arab Region: Data And Measurement, Patterns And Trends," Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(02), pages 275-314.
    20. Evans, Geoffrey & Rose, Pauline, 2007. "Support for Democracy in Malawi: Does Schooling Matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 904-919, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecr:col022:39315. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Biblioteca CEPAL (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eclaccl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.