Stunting and selection effects of famine: A case study of the Great Chinese Famine

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gorgens, Tue; Meng, Xin; Vaithianathan, Rhema
• 署名单位: Australian National University; University of Auckland
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2010.12.005
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 99-111
• 关键词: Famine; height; CHINA; panel data

摘要

Many developing countries experience famine. If survival is related to height, the increasingly common practice of using height as a measure of well-being may be misleading. We devise a novel method for disentangling the stunting from the selection effects of famine. Using data from the 1959-1961 Great Chinese Famine, we find that taller children were more likely to survive the famine. Controlling for selection, we estimate that children under the age of five who survived the famine grew up to be 1 to 2 cm shorter. Our results suggest that if a country experiences a shock such as famine, average height is potentially a biased measure of economic conditions during childhood. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.