Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/223259 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IFS Working Papers No. W19/15
Publisher: 
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London
Abstract: 
This paper estimates flexible child health production functions to investigate whether better water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices make nutrition intake more productive for children aged 6-24 months. Using cohort data, with detailed information on nutrition intake and WASH investments, and a control function approach to account for endogeneity of inputs, we show that better WASH increases the productivity of protein and calories in the formation of child health using as proxies child height and weight. We also uncover heterogeneity in the productivity of these inputs by child gender: nutritional intake is found to be more productive for boys, and WASH investments more productive for girls. Further analysis indicates that this is not driven by differential parental invest-ments by child gender. Although the study sample are children born in the early 1980s they faced similar nutritional and WASH conditions as those faced by children currently living in poor households in low-income settings.
Subjects: 
child health
sanitation
nutrition
complementarities
health production function
JEL: 
I12
I15
O15
O18
Q53
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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