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Early life environment and adult height: The case of Chile

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  • Borrescio-Higa, Florencia
  • Bozzoli, Carlos Guillermo
  • Droller, Federico

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between adult height and early-life disease environment, proxied by the infant mortality rate (IMR) in the first year of life, using cohort-region level data for Chile for 1960–1989. IMRs show a remarkable reduction of 100 points per thousand over this thirty-year period, declining from 119.4 to 21.0 per thousand. We also document a 0.96 cm increase in height per decade.We find that the drop in IMRs observed among our cohorts explains almost all of the long-term trend in rising adult heights, and that per capita GDP does not appear to have any predictive power in this context. Results are robust in a variety of specifications, which include area and cohort dummies, an adjustment for internal migration, and urbanization rates. Our results point to the long-term effect of a public health policy.

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  • Borrescio-Higa, Florencia & Bozzoli, Carlos Guillermo & Droller, Federico, 2019. "Early life environment and adult height: The case of Chile," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 134-143.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:33:y:2019:i:c:p:134-143
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2018.11.003
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    Cited by:

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    5. Escamilla Guerrero, David & Lepistö, Miko & Minns, Chris, 2022. "Explaining gender differences in migrant sorting: evidence from Canada-US migration," Economic History Working Papers 117260, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    6. Chen, Jiandong & Xie, Qiaoli & Shahbaz, Muhammad & Song, Malin & Wu, Yuliang, 2021. "The fossil energy trade relations among BRICS countries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    7. David Escamilla-Guerrero & Miko Lepistö & Chris Minns, 2025. "Explaining gender differences in migrant sorting: Evidence from Canada-US migration," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _214, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Manuel Llorca-Jaña & Javier Rivas & Damian Clarke & Diego Barría Traverso, 2020. "Height of Male Prisoners in Santiago de Chile during the Nitrate Era: The Penalty of being Unskilled, Illiterate, Illegitimate and Mapuche," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-24, August.
    9. Llorca-Jaña, Manuel & Clarke, Damian & Navarrete-Montalvo, Juan & Araya-Valenzuela, Roberto & Allende, Martina, 2020. "New anthropometric evidence on living standards in nineteenth-century Chile," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Adult height; Infant mortality; Income; Developing country;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

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