Early life environment and adult height: The case of Chile

Florencia Borrescio-Higa, Carlos Bozzoli and Federico Droller

Economics & Human Biology, 2019, vol. 33, issue C, 134-143

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the relationship between adult height and early-life disease environment, proxied by the infant mortality rate (IMR) in the first year of life, using cohort-region level data for Chile for 1960–1989. IMRs show a remarkable reduction of 100 points per thousand over this thirty-year period, declining from 119.4 to 21.0 per thousand. We also document a 0.96 cm increase in height per decade.We find that the drop in IMRs observed among our cohorts explains almost all of the long-term trend in rising adult heights, and that per capita GDP does not appear to have any predictive power in this context. Results are robust in a variety of specifications, which include area and cohort dummies, an adjustment for internal migration, and urbanization rates. Our results point to the long-term effect of a public health policy.

Keywords: Adult height; Infant mortality; Income; Developing country (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:33:y:2019:i:c:p:134-143

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2018.11.003

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