The Quiet Lasting Impact of the Vietnam War on Children's Physical Development

Hiroyuki Yamada and Tien Vu

No DP2025-017, Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series from Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University

Abstract: This paper examines the long-term health impacts of the large-scale herbicide spraying campaign by the U.S. in southern Vietnam during the Vietnam War on the height and weight of children under the age of 16 years in 2022, nearly 50 years after the Vietnam War ended. We combine the information on the age- and gender-adjusted z-score for the height and weight of children in 2022 with the herbicide spraying intensity at commune-level during the war. Our results using an instrumental variable approach show that communes that were exposed to greater amounts of herbicides during the war tended to have shorter children in 2022. Not only Agent Orange but also Agent White had a negative impact on children’s height after half a century.

Keywords: Vietnam War; herbicide; children; physical development; health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 N45 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2025-07-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-sea
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:keo:dpaper:dp2025-017

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