Remittances and household nutrition: evidence from rural Kilimanjaro in Tanzania

Rosemary E. Isoto () and David S. Kraybill ()
Additional contact information
Rosemary E. Isoto: Tufts University
David S. Kraybill: Ohio State University

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, 2017, vol. 9, issue 2, No 5, 239-253

Abstract: Abstract This paper examines the role of remittances in the livelihoods of households in developing countries. Previous studies have shown that remittances are mostly utilized for investment in estates, agricultural inputs or education; however, remittances may also be useful for smoothing consumption by poor rural households. Hence, we estimated the differences in consumption patterns for macronutrients and micronutrients between remittance recipients and non-recipients using data from Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. An instrumental variable strategy was adopted in econometric estimations of nutrient consumption to address issues of self-selection and endogeneity of net income and remittances. Furthermore, the instrumental variable quantile regression method was used to estimate the distributional effects of remittances. A major finding was that remittances increased investment in intake of nutrients such as proteins, vitamin A, vitamin C and calcium; these are nutrients that are vitally important for physical development of children and for improving the health of adults. Remittances did not have a significant effect on consumption of macronutrients such as carbohydrates and fats, or total calories.

Keywords: Remittances; Macronutrients; Micronutrients; Tanzania; Sub-Saharan Africa; Quantile regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12571-017-0656-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:ssefpa:v:9:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s12571-017-0656-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ulture/journal/12571

DOI: 10.1007/s12571-017-0656-4

Access Statistics for this article

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food is currently edited by R.N. Strange

More articles in Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food from Springer, The International Society for Plant Pathology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().