The Costs of Consumption Smoothing: Less Schooling and Less Nutrition

Dongya Koh and Raül Santaeulà lia-Llopis
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis () and Leandro Machado de Magalhaes

No 939, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: Using novel micro data, we explore lifecycle consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We find that households' ability to smooth consumption over the lifecycle is large, par- ticularly, in rural areas. Interestingly, consumption in old age is sustained by shifting to self-farmed staple food, as opposed to traditional savings mechanisms or food gifts. This smoothing strategy entails two important costs. First, there is a loss of human capital as children are diverted away from school and into producing self-farmed food. Second, a diet largely concentrated in staple food (e.g., maize in Malawi) in old age results in a loss of nutritional quality for households headed by the elderly.

Keywords: consumption; expenditure; Sub-Saharan Africa; Lifecycle; Self-farming; Nutritional Loss (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 O11 R20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Cost of Consumption Smoothing: Less Schooling and less Nutrition (2019)
Journal Article: The costs of consumption smoothing: less schooling and less nutrition (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:939

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