Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/307196 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 17372
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
A substantial share of the world's children reside in disaster-prone areas and suffer from stunted growth. Child growth in the first 1000 days of life can falter depending on health endowments and investments. We investigate growth faltering and catch-up in children exposed to comparable earthquakes in utero. Our analysis leverages within cluster or mother variation, controls for temporal trends, and utilizes a global sample of localized data spanning several decades. On average, we document modest adverse effects on children's height that are more pronounced when earthquakes are more unexpected and higher in magnitude. These average effects, however, conceal negative short-term effects and posterior recovery mechanisms via parental health investments, economic recouping, and foreign aid, which facilitate subsequent catch-up growth of children. We discuss our findings and contributions within the literature on child health and disasters, which has largely been confined to single-country studies.
Subjects: 
child health
natural disasters
global evidence
local data
aid
JEL: 
I15
I18
J13
O15
Q54
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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