The Effect of Nature's Wealth on Economic Development: Evidence from Wildlife

Alex Armand and Ivan Kim Taveras

No 15680, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Twenty percent of the world population depend on wildlife for income and food. We show how exogenous variation in the wealth of marine wildlife shapes human and economic development. For the period 1972–2018, we analyze half a million adult women and 1.5 million live births in 36 low- and middle-income countries. We document how short-run deteriorations near human settlements cause diets to be poorer in nutrients, increasing malnutrition among the most vulnerable population, pregnant women. These shocks have negative impacts on their children. When deteriorations are experienced in utero, they increase mortality, worsen physical development, and have long-lasting effects on economic well-being. Shocks operate in an unobserved way as parents do not raise health investments. Effects are larger in areas that are more dependent on marine resources and where overfishing depletes them.

Keywords: Child; Climate change; Economic development; Health; Mortality; Natural resource; Ocean; Renewable resource (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 O10 Q20 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-evo
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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