IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/gdec07/6540.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Poverty, Undernutrition, and Child Mortality: Some Inter-Regional Puzzles and their Implications for Research and Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Klasen, Stephan

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between measures of income poverty, undernourishment, childhood undernutrition, and child mortality in developing countries. While there is, as expected, a close aggregate correlation between these measures of deprivation, the measures generate some inter-regional paradoxes. Income poverty and child mortality is highest in Africa, but childhood undernutrition is by far the highest in South Asia, while the share of people with insufficient calories (undernourishment) is highest in the Caribbean. The paper finds that standard explanations cannot account for these inter-regional paradoxes, particularly the ones related to undernourishment and childhood undernutrition. The paper suggests that measurement issues related to the way undernourishment and childhood undernutrition is measured might play a significant role in affecting these inter-regional puzzles and points to implications for research and policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Klasen, Stephan, 2007. "Poverty, Undernutrition, and Child Mortality: Some Inter-Regional Puzzles and their Implications for Research and Policy," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 17, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:gdec07:6540
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/19873/1/Klasen.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sudhir Anand & Martin Ravallion, 1993. "Human Development in Poor Countries: On the Role of Private Incomes and Public Services," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 133-150, Winter.
    2. Sen, Amartya, 1988. "The concept of development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 9-26, Elsevier.
    3. Guilkey, David K. & Riphahn, Regina T., 1998. "The determinants of child mortality in the Philippines: estimation of a structural model," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 281-305, August.
    4. Kenneth Harttgen & Mark Misselhorn, 2006. "A Multilevel Approach to Explain Child Mortality and Undernutrition in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 152, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Pelletier, D.L. & Frongillo Jr., E.A. & Habicht, J.-P., 1993. "Epidemiologic evidence for a potentiating effect of malnutrition on child mortality," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 83(8), pages 1130-1133.
    6. repec:dgr:rugggd:199735 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Lipton, Michael & Ravallion, Martin, 1995. "Poverty and policy," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 41, pages 2551-2657, Elsevier.
    8. Svedberg, Peter, 2002. "Undernutrition Overestimated," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(1), pages 5-36, October.
    9. Osmani, Siddiq & Sen, Amartya, 2003. "The hidden penalties of gender inequality: fetal origins of ill-health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 105-121, January.
    10. Stephen Klasen, 2000. "Measuring Poverty And Deprivation In South Africa," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 46(1), pages 33-58, March.
    11. Misselhorn, Mark & Klasen, Stephan, 2006. "Determinants of the Growth Semi-Elasticity of Poverty Reduction," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2006 15, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    12. Svedberg, Peter, 1999. "841 Million Undernourished?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(12), pages 2081-2098, December.
    13. Mark McGillivray, 2005. "Measuring Non‐Economic Well‐Being Achievement," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(2), pages 337-364, June.
    14. Brinkman, Henk-Jan & Drukker, J.W. & Slot, Brigitte, 1997. "GDP per capita and the biological standard of living in contemporary developing countries," GGDC Research Memorandum 199735, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    15. Haddad, Lawrence James & Alderman, Harold & Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina & Yohannes, Yisehac, 2002. "Reducing child undernutrition: how far does income growth take us?," FCND briefs 137, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Smith, Lisa C & Haddad, Lawrence, 2002. "How Potent Is Economic Growth in Reducing Undernutrition? What Are the Pathways of Impact? New Cross-Country Evidence," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(1), pages 55-76, October.
    17. Smith, Lisa C. & Ramakrishnan, Usha & Ndiaye, Aida & Haddad, Lawrence James & Martorell, Reynaldo, 2003. "The importance of women's status for child nutrition in developing countries:," Research reports 131, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    18. Adams, Richard Jr., 2004. "Economic Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Estimating the Growth Elasticity of Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 1989-2014, December.
    19. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1992. "Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures : A decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-295, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Haddad, Lawrence James & Alderman, Harold & Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina & Yohannes, Yisehac, 2002. "Reducing child undernutrition," FCND discussion papers 137, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Bluhm R & Crombrugghe D.P.I. de & Szirmai A., 2013. "The pace of poverty reduction - A fractional response approach," MERIT Working Papers 2013-051, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    3. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Klasen, Stephan & Villalobos, Carlos, 2020. "Diverging identification of the poor: A non-random process. Chile 1992–2017," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    5. Bluhm, Richard & de Crombrugghe, Denis & Szirmai, Adam, 2018. "Poverty accounting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 237-255.
    6. Gabriele, Alberto & Schettino, Francesco, 2007. "Child Malnutrition and Mortality in Developing Countries: Evidence from a Cross-Country Analysis," MPRA Paper 3132, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jul 2007.
    7. Soriano, Bárbara & Garrido, Alberto, 2016. "How important is economic growth for reducing undernourishment in developing countries?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 87-101.
    8. Melanie Grosse & Kenneth Harttgen & Stephan Klasen, 2006. "Measuring Pro-Poor Progress towards the Non-Income Millennium Development Goals," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-38, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2009. "Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 726-745.
    10. Oasis Kodila-Tedika & Simplice A. Asongu & Julio Mukendi Kayembe, 2016. "Middle Class in Africa: Determinants and Consequences," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 527-549, October.
    11. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2017. "Recent finance advances in information technology for inclusive development: a survey," Research Africa Network Working Papers 17/009, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    12. Desire Avom & Fabrizio Carmignani & Abdour Chowdhury, "undated". "Four Scenarios of Poverty Reduction and the Role of Economic Policy," MRG Discussion Paper Series 3109, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    13. Fosu, Augustin Kwasi, 2017. "Growth, inequality, and poverty reduction in developing countries: Recent global evidence," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 306-336.
    14. Simplice Asongu, 2016. "Reinventing Foreign Aid For Inclusive And Sustainable Development: Kuznets, Piketty And The Great Policy Reversal," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 736-755, September.
    15. Kalwij, Adriaan & Verschoor, Arjan, 2007. "Not by growth alone: The role of the distribution of income in regional diversity in poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 805-829, May.
    16. Bigsten, Arne & Kebede, Bereket & Shimeles, Abebe & Taddesse, Mekonnen, 2003. "Growth and Poverty Reduction in Ethiopia: Evidence from Household Panel Surveys," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 87-106, January.
    17. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2016. "Mobile Phone Penetration, Mobile Banking and Inclusive Development in Africa," The African Finance Journal, Africagrowth Institute, vol. 18(1), pages 34-52.
    18. Klasen, Stephan, 2008. "Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction: Measurement Issues using Income and Non-Income Indicators," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 420-445, March.
    19. Martin Ravallion, 2013. "The Idea of Antipoverty Policy," NBER Working Papers 19210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Ismael Ahamdanech & Carmelo García-Pérez & Mercedes Prieto-Alaiz, 2020. "A Stochastic Dominance Approach to Evaluating Pro-Poor Growth—An Application to the Spanish Case," Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 12(5), pages 1-16, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Millennium Development Goals; Undernutrition; Child Mortality; Poverty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

    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:zbw:gdec07:6540. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfselea.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.