Too hot to hold: the effects of high temperatures during pregnancy on endowment and adult welfare outcomes

Zihan Hu and Teng Li

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We examine the relationships between high temperatures during pregnancy and birth weight and later outcomes using random temperature fluctuations across 131 counties in China. One standard deviation increase of high-temperature days during pregnancy triggers about 0.07 kg lower birth weight, and, in adulthood, a 0.80 cm decrease in height, 0.27 fewer years of schooling, 13.30% less annual earnings, and 8.77%, 10.96%, and 7.31% of one standard deviation lower for evaluated health, word-, and math-test score, respectively. The impacts seem to be concentrated in the second trimester. Such effects should be included in calculations of the costs of global warming. Back-of-the-envelope predictions suggest that at the end of the 21st century, newborns on average will weigh 0.02-0.09 kg less; losses in height and education years will be 0.27-1.05 cm and 0.09-0.35 years, respectively. We also conclude that adverse effects of high temperatures are more likely to be consistent with physiological effects than income effects, because: (i) places with the high proportion of heat-tolerant crop area do not mitigate any estimated temperature sensitivity during pregnancy and (ii) total precipitation and high temperatures in the last year growing season before birth have no significant effects on all outcomes.

Keywords: High temperatures during pregnancy; birth weight; adult welfare outcomes; global warming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I21 Q51 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-env and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/69644/8/MPRA_paper_69644.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:69644

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().