IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fda/fdaddt/2010-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Weight of the Crisis: Evidence From Newborns in Argentina

Author

Listed:
  • Carlos Bozzoli
  • Climent Quintana

Abstract

Argentina hit world news headlines in 2002 due to the largest debt-default in history and a sudden economic collapse reminiscent of economic statistics from the Great Depression. In this article, we focus on other consequences of the crisis that are notso obvious, but that may linger for decades on. Combining macroeconomic indicatorswith the Argentine national registry of live births, approximately 1.9 million live birthsoccurring between 2001 and 2003, we show that the crisis led to an average birth weightloss of 30 grams. Our estimate is robust to different identification strategies. This deterioration in birth weight occurred in just about 6 months, and represents one sixth of the difference in average birth weight between American and Pakistani babies. We also find that the crisis affected particularly the weight of babies born from low-socioeconomicstatus mothers. In an attempt to estimate the long-lasting economic cost of the crisis,we simulate the average loss of future individual earnings due to the reduction in averagebirth weight: about 500 US dollars per live birth in present value.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos Bozzoli & Climent Quintana, 2010. "The Weight of the Crisis: Evidence From Newborns in Argentina," Working Papers 2010-22, FEDEA.
    • Handle: RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2010-22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://documentos.fedea.net/pubs/dt/2010/dt-2010-22.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morten O. Ravn & Harald Uhlig, 2002. "On adjusting the Hodrick-Prescott filter for the frequency of observations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 371-375.
    2. Savanti, Maria Paula & Patrinos, Harry Anthony, 2005. "Rising returns to schooling in Argentina, 1992-2002 : productivity or credentialism?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3714, The World Bank.
    3. Gerard J. van den Berg & Maarten Lindeboom & France Portrait, 2006. "Economic Conditions Early in Life and Individual Mortality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 290-302, March.
    4. Heather Royer, 2009. "Separated at Girth: US Twin Estimates of the Effects of Birth Weight," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 49-85, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andreella, Claudia & Karlsson, Martin & Nilsson, Therese & Westphal, Matthias, 2015. "The long shadows of past insults intergenerational transmission of health over 130 years," Ruhr Economic Papers 571, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    2. repec:dgr:rugsom:12002-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Clarke, Damian & Cortés, Gustavo & Vergara, Diego, 2017. "Growing Together: Assessing Equity and Effciency in an Early-Life Health Program in Chile," Research Department working papers 1139, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
    4. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    5. Gabriella Conti, 2013. "The Developmental Origins of Health Inequality," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 285-309, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    6. Almond, Douglas & Currie, Janet, 2011. "Human Capital Development before Age Five," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 15, pages 1315-1486, Elsevier.
    7. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie & Valentina Duque, 2018. "Childhood Circumstances and Adult Outcomes: Act II," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1360-1446, December.
    8. Thompson, Owen, 2014. "Genetic mechanisms in the intergenerational transmission of health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 132-146.
    9. Damian Clarke & Gustavo Cortés Méndez & Diego Vergara Sepúlveda, 2020. "Growing together: assessing equity and efficiency in a prenatal health program," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 883-956, July.
    10. Maystadt, Jean-François & Migali, Giuseppe, 2021. "The transmission of health across 7 generations in China, 1789–1906," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    11. Hamid Noghanibehambari & Farzaneh Noghani, 2023. "Long‐run intergenerational health benefits of women empowerment: Evidence from suffrage movements in the US," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(11), pages 2583-2631, November.
    12. Settele, Sonja & Ewijk, Reyn van, 2018. "Can cigarette taxes during pregnancy mitigate the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 130-148.
    13. Angelini, V. & Mierau, J.O., 2012. "Social and economic aspects of childhood health," Research Report 12002-EEF, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    14. Noghanibehambari, Hamid & Engelman, Michal, 2022. "Social insurance programs and later-life mortality: Evidence from new deal relief spending," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    15. Thomas Maag, 2008. "Economic Correlates of Suicide Rates in OECD Countries," KOF Working papers 08-207, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    16. Angelini, Viola & Mierau, Jochen O., 2014. "Born at the right time? Childhood health and the business cycle," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 35-43.
    17. Noghanibehambari, Hamid & Fletcher, Jason, 2023. "Long-Term Health Benefits of Occupational Licensing: Evidence from Midwifery Laws," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    18. Mikko Myrskylä, 2010. "The effects of shocks in early life mortality on later life expectancy and mortality compression: A cohort analysis," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 22(12), pages 289-320.
    19. Adam Isen & Maya Rossin-Slater & W. Reed Walker, 2017. "Every Breath You Take—Every Dollar You’ll Make: The Long-Term Consequences of the Clean Air Act of 1970," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(3), pages 848-902.
    20. Konon, Alexander & Fritsch, Michael & Kritikos, Alexander S., 2018. "Business cycles and start-ups across industries: An empirical analysis of German regions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 742-761.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2010-22. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Carmen Arias (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.fedea.net .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.