Mitigating the health impact of a famine: Evidence from the 1985 Ethiopian emergency food aid

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Di Falco, Salvatore; Han, Kyungbo
• 署名单位: University of Geneva; University of Bath
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103531
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Emergency aid; Relief operation; HEALTH; CHILDREN; Humanitarian crisis; famine

摘要

We examine the long-term mitigating impact of emergency food aid on health status using the food aid response to the Ethiopian famine in 1984 as a case study. Employing novel geospatial data on the location of relief camps where emergency food was distributed, we estimate the effect of proximity to a camp on height in adulthood. We compare different birth timings (born before or during versus after the relief operation) and different villages of birth (born close to versus far from a camp), exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in accessibility to emergency aid. Access to relief operation in early childhood leads to higher stature in adulthood. Aid beneficiaries also display higher later-life labor productivity in the agricultural sector, which suggests that the long-term health consequence of emergency aid may have translated into gains in agricultural productivity.