Endowments and Investment within the Household: Evidence from Iodine Supplementation in Tanzania

Achyuta Adhvaryu () and Anant Nyshadham
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Achyuta Adhvaryu: MEPH Health Policy and Administration, Yale University

Working Papers from Economic Growth Center, Yale University

Abstract: Standard theories of resource allocation within the household posit that parents’ investments in their children reflect a combination of children’s endowments and parents’ preferences for child quality. We study how changes in children’s cognitive endowments affect the distribution of parental investments amongst siblings, using data from a large-scale iodine supplementation program in Tanzania. We find that parents strongly reinforce the higher cognitive endowments of children who received in utero iodine supplementation, by investing more in vaccinations and early life nutrition. The effect of siblings’ endowments on own investments depends on the extent to which quality across children is substitutable in parents’ utility functions. Neonatal investments, made before cognitive endowments become apparent to parents, are unaffected. Fertility is unaffected as well, suggesting that inframarginal quality improvements can spur investment responses even when the quantity-quality tradeoff is not readily observable.

Keywords: endowments; intra-household; child health; Tanzania (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I15 I18 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-dev
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Working Paper: Endowments and Investments within the Household: Evidence from Iodine Supplementation in Tanzania (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egc:wpaper:998

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