Crop Diversification and Child Health: Empirical Evidence From Tanzania

Stefania Lovo and Marcella Veronesi

No 08/2014, Working Papers from University of Verona, Department of Economics

Abstract: Malnutrition is recognized as a major issue among low-income households in developing countries with long-term implications for economic development. Recently, crop diversification has been considered as a strategy to improve nutrition and health. However, there is no systematic empirical evidence on the role played by crop diversification in improving human health. We use three waves of the Tanzania National Panel Survey to test the effect of crop diversification on child health. We implement two instrumental variable approaches, and perform several robustness checks to address potential endogeneity concerns. We find a positive but small effect of an increase in crop diversification on child height-for-age z-score, through greater dietary diversity. The effect is larger for subsistence households and children living in households with limited market access.

Keywords: child health; crop diversification; dietary diversity; nutrition; food security; Tanzania (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I15 O12 Q12 Q18 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-agr and nep-dev
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Ecological Economics 158:168-179

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Related works:
Journal Article: Crop Diversification and Child Health: Empirical Evidence From Tanzania (2019)
Working Paper: Crop diversification and child health: Empirical evidence from Tanzania (2015)
Working Paper: Crop Diversification and Child Health: Empirical Evidence From Tanzania (2014)
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