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Child mortality, income and adult height

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Author Info
Carlos Bozzoli (Princeton University)
Angus Deaton (Princeton University)
Climent Quintana-Domeque (Princeton University)

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Abstract

We investigate the childhood determinants of adult height in populations, focusing on the respective roles of income and of disease. We develop a model of selection and scarring, in which the early life burden of nutrition and disease is not only responsible for mortality in childhood but also leaves a residue of long-term health risks for survivors, risks that express themselves in adult height, as well as in late-life disease. Across a range of European countries and the United States, we find a strong inverse relationship between post-neonatal (one month to one year) mortality, interpreted as a measure of the disease and nutritional burden in childhood, and the mean height of those children as adults. In pooled birth-cohort data over 30 years for the United States and eleven European countries, post-neonatal mortality in the year of birth accounts for more than 60 percent of the combined cross-country and cross-cohort variation in adult heights. The estimated effects are smaller but remain significant once we allow for country and birth-cohort effects. In the poorest and highest mortality countries of the world, there is evidence that child mortality is positively associated with adult height. That selection should dominate scarring at high mortality levels, and scarring dominate selection at low mortality levels, is consistent with the model for reasonable values of its parameters.

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Paper provided by Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies. in its series Working Papers with number 162.

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Date of creation: Mar 2007
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Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:162

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  1. Franco Peracchi, 2008. "Height and Economic Development in Italy, 1730–1980," CEIS Research Paper 108, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 10 Jul 2008. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Angus Deaton & Jean Drèze, 2008. "Nutrition In India: Facts And Interpretations," Working papers 170, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Raghav Gaiha & Vani Kulkarni & Manoj Pandey & Katsushi Imai, 2009. "Pro-poor growth, poverty, and inequality in rural Vietnam: welfare gap between the ethnic majority and minority," The School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 0907, Economics, The University of Manchester. [Downloadable!]
  4. Hatton, Timothy J. & Martin, Richard M., 2008. "The Effects on Stature of Poverty, Family Size and Birth Order: British Children in the 1930s," IZA Discussion Papers 3314, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  5. Hans van Kippersluis & Tom van Ourti & Owen O'Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2008. "Health and Income across the Life Cycle and Generations in Europe," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-009/3, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
  6. Janet Currie, 2008. "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Socioeconomic Status, Poor Health in Childhood, and Human Capital Development," NBER Working Papers 13987, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields & Timothy J. Hatton & Richard M. Martin, 2007. "Childhood Economic Conditions and Length of Life: Evidence from the UK Boyd Orr Cohort, 1937-2005," IZA Discussion Papers 3042, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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