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Growing richer and taller: Explaining Change in the Distribution of Child Nutritional Status during Vietnam’s Economic Boom

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  • Owen O'Donnell

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam, University of Macedonia, Greece)

  • Ángel López Nicolás

    (Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain)

  • Eddy van Doorslaer

    (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)

Abstract

Over a five-year period in the 1990s Vietnam experienced annual economic growth of more than 8% and a decrease of 15 points in the proportion of children chronically malnourished (stunted). We estimate the extent to which changes in the distribution of child nutritional status can be explained by changes in the level and distribution of income, and of other covariates. This is done using data from the 1993 and 1998 Vietnam Living Standards Surveys and a flexible decomposition technique that explains change throughout the complete distribution of child height. One-half of the decrease in the proportion of children stunted is explained by changes in the distributions of covariates and 35% is explained by change in the distribution of income. Covariates, including income, explain less of the decrease in very severe malnutrition, which is largely attributable to change in the conditional distribution of child height. This discussion paper has resulted in a publication in the Journal of Development Economics , 2009, 88(1), 45-58.

Suggested Citation

  • Owen O'Donnell & Ángel López Nicolás & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2007. "Growing richer and taller: Explaining Change in the Distribution of Child Nutritional Status during Vietnam’s Economic Boom," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-008/3, Tinbergen Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20070008
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. O'Donnell, Owen & Nicolás, Ángel López & Van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2009. "Growing richer and taller: Explaining change in the distribution of child nutritional status during Vietnam's economic boom," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 45-58, January.
    2. Cavatorta, Elisa & Shankar, Bhavani & Flores-Martinez, Artemisa, 2015. "Explaining Cross-State Disparities in Child Nutrition in Rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 216-237.
    3. Ragui Assaad & Caroline Krafft & Nadia Belhaj Hassine & Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, 2012. "Inequality Of Opportunity In Child Health In The Arab World And Turkey," Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(02), pages 1-37.
    4. International Food Policy Research Institute, 2015. "Global Nutrition Report 2015: Actions and accountability to advance nutrition and sustainable development," IFPRI books, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), number 978-0-89629-883-5, February.
    5. Gørgens, Tue & Meng, Xin & Vaithianathan, Rhema, 2012. "Stunting and selection effects of famine: A case study of the Great Chinese Famine," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 99-111.
    6. Nguyen, Minh Cong & Winters, Paul, 2011. "The impact of migration on food consumption patterns: The case of Vietnam," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 71-87, February.
    7. de Meijer, Claudine & O’Donnell, Owen & Koopmanschap, Marc & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2013. "Health expenditure growth: Looking beyond the average through decomposition of the full distribution," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 88-105.
    8. Mejía Acosta, Andrés & Haddad, Lawrence, 2014. "The politics of success in the fight against malnutrition in Peru," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 26-35.
    9. Azzarri, Carlo & Zezza, Alberto, 2011. "International migration and nutritional outcomes in Tajikistan," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 54-70, February.
    10. Fan, Shenggen & Brzeska, Joanna, 2011. "The nexus between agriculture and nutrition: Do growth patterns and conditional factors matter?," 2020 conference briefs 1, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    11. Dolores Jiménez-Rubio & Cristina Hernández-Quevedo, 2011. "Inequalities in the use of health services between immigrants and the native population in Spain: what is driving the differences?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 12(1), pages 17-28, February.
    12. Paul E. Carrillo & Jonathan L. Rothbaum, 2016. "Counterfactual Spatial Distributions," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(5), pages 868-894, November.
    13. Casabonne, Ursula & Kenny, Charles, 2012. "The Best Things in Life are (Nearly) Free: Technology, Knowledge, and Global Health," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 21-35.
    14. Le, Huong Thu & Homel, Ross, 2015. "The impact of child labor on children's educational performance: Evidence from rural Vietnam," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-13.
    15. Sonoda, Tadashi & Ashok, Mishra & Vu, Thi Bich Lien, 2016. "Effects of Market Work and Own Household Work on Nutrition Intake of Rural Adults: The Case of Vietnam," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235818, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. Owen O’Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer & Adam Wagstaff, 2012. "Decomposition of Inequalities in Health and Health Care," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 17, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Thong Pham & Peter Kooreman & Ruud Koning & Doede Wiersma, 2013. "Gender patterns in Vietnam’s child mortality," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 303-322, January.
    18. Peter Hangoma & Arild Aakvik & Bjarne Robberstad, 2017. "Explaining changes in child health inequality in the run up to the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): The case of Zambia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-21, February.
    19. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Samrat Bhattacharya & Rudra Sensarma, 2015. "An analysis of the factors determining crime in England and Wales: A quantile regression approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(1), pages 665-679.
    20. Mohamed Amara & Hatem Jemmali, 2018. "Do Tunisian Young Children Have Equal Chances in Access to Basic Services? A Special Focus on Opportunities in Healthcare and Nutrition," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(2), pages 383-403, April.
    21. Mohamed Amara & Hatem Jemmali, 2017. "On the Decomposition and Dynamics of Inequality of Opportunities: A Special Focus on Early Childhood Health and Nutrition in Tunisia," Working Papers 1093, Economic Research Forum, revised 05 Nov 2017.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Malnutrition; child height; decomposition; quantile regression; Vietnam;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

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