IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hka/wpaper/2014-008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Early-Life Environment and Adult Stature in Brazil during the Period 1950 to 1980

Author

Listed:
  • Victor Hugo de Oliveira

    (IPECE)

  • Climent Quintana-Domeque

    (University of Oxford)

Abstract

We study the relationship between environmental conditions at birth and adult stature using cohort-state level data in Brazil. We find that GDP per capita in the year of birth, not infant mortality rate, is a robust correlate of population stature in Brazil during the period 1950-1980. Our results are robust to a battery of robustness checks. Using a useful bracketing property of the (state) fixed effects and lagged dependent variables (heights) estimators, we find that an increase in GDP per capita of the magnitude corresponding to that period is associated with 43%-68% of the increase in adult height occurring in the same time span. Income, not disease, appears to be the main correlate of Brazilian population heights in the second half of the 20th Century.

Suggested Citation

  • Victor Hugo de Oliveira & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2014. "Early-Life Environment and Adult Stature in Brazil during the Period 1950 to 1980," Working Papers 2014-008, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2014-008
    Note: FI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Oliveira_Quintana-Domeque_2014_height_brazil_March_1_2014.pdf
    File Function: First version, 3/1/2014
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. van den Berg, Gerard J. & Lundborg, Petter & Nystedt, Paul & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2009. "Critical Periods During Childhood and Adolescence: A Study of Adult Height Among Immigrant Siblings," IZA Discussion Papers 4140, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Paul Schultz, T., 2003. "Wage rentals for reproducible human capital: evidence from Ghana and the Ivory Coast," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 331-366, December.
    3. Carlos Bozzoli & Angus Deaton & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2009. "Adult height and childhood disease," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 46(4), pages 647-669, November.
    4. Batty, G. David & Shipley, Martin J. & Gunnell, David & Huxley, Rachel & Kivimaki, Mika & Woodward, Mark & Lee, Crystal Man Ying & Smith, George Davey, 2009. "Height, wealth, and health: An overview with new data from three longitudinal studies," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 137-152, July.
    5. Peracchi, Franco & Arcaleni, Emilia, 2011. "Early-life environment, height and BMI of young men in Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 251-264, July.
    6. Jonathan Guryan, 2004. "Desegregation and Black Dropout Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 919-943, September.
    7. Lundborg, Petter & Nystedt, Paul & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2009. "The Height Premium in Earnings: The Role of Physical Capacity and Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills," IZA Discussion Papers 4266, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Reis, Mauricio, 2012. "Differences in nutritional outcomes between Brazilian white and black children," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 174-188.
    9. Alves, Denisard & Belluzzo, Walter, 2004. "Infant mortality and child health in Brazil," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 391-410, December.
    10. repec:pri:rpdevs:deaton_height_health_inequality_revised_ack_jan08.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Monasterio, Leonardo M & Noguerol, Luiz Paulo, 2005. "Growth and inequalities of height in Brazil (1939-1981)," MPRA Paper 769, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daoud, Adel & Kim, Rockli & Subramanian, S.V., 2019. "Predicting women's height from their socioeconomic status: A machine learning approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 1-1.

    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. de Oliveira, Victor Hugo & Quintana-Domeque, Climent, 2014. "Early-life environment and adult stature in Brazil: An analysis for cohorts born between 1950 and 1980," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 67-80.
    2. Víctor Hugo de Oliveira Sila & Climent Quintana, 2009. "Infant disease, economic conditions at birth and adult stature in Brazil," Working Papers 2009-33, FEDEA.
    3. Quintana-Domeque, Climent & Bozzoli, Carlos & Bosch, Mariano, 2011. "Infant mortality and adult stature in Spain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(11), pages 1893-1903, June.
    4. Quintana-Domeque, Climent & Bozzoli, Carlos & Bosch, Mariano, 2012. "The evolution of adult height across Spanish regions, 1950–1980: A new source of data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 264-275.
    5. Mariano Bosch & Carlos Bozzoli & Climent Quintana, 2009. "Infant mortality, income and adult stature in Spain," Working Papers 2009-27, FEDEA.
    6. Tao, Hung-Lin, 2014. "Height, weight, and entry earnings of female graduates in Taiwan," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 85-98.
    7. Ciccarelli, Carlo & De Fraja, Gianni & Vuri, Daniela, 2021. "Effects of passive smoking on prenatal and infant development: Lessons from the past," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    8. Marco-Gracia, Francisco J. & Puche, Javier, 2021. "The association between male height and lifespan in rural Spain, birth cohorts 1835-1939," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    9. Spijker, Jeroen J.A. & Cámara, Antonio D. & Blanes, Amand, 2012. "The health transition and biological living standards: Adult height and mortality in 20th-century Spain," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 276-288.
    10. 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.
    11. Donn Feir & M. Chris Auld, 2017. "The Effect of Indian Residential Schools on Height and Body Mass Post-1930," Department Discussion Papers 1703, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    12. Juliet Elu & Gregory Price, 2013. "Ethnicity as a Barrier to Childhood and Adolescent Health Capital in Tanzania: Evidence from the Wage-Height Relationship," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 25(1), pages 1-13.
    13. Manuel Flores & Adriaan Kalwij, 2014. "The associations between early life circumstances and later life health and employment in Europe," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 1251-1282, December.
    14. Alan Fernihough & Mark E. McGovern, "undated". "Physical Stature Decline and the Health Status of the Elderly Population in England," PGDA Working Papers 11214, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    15. Donna L. Feir & M. Christopher Auld, 2021. "Indian residential schools: Height and body mass post‐1930," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 126-163, February.
    16. Baten, Joerg, 2017. "Economics, human biology and inequality: A review of “puzzles” and recent contributions from a Deatonian perspective," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 3-8.
    17. Ayllón, Sara & Ferreira-Batista, Natalia N., 2015. "‘Mommy, I miss daddy’. The effect of family structure on children's health in Brazil," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 75-89.
    18. Akachi, Yoko & Canning, David, 2010. "Health trends in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conflicting evidence from infant mortality rates and adult heights," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 273-288, July.
    19. Perelman, Julian, 2014. "Are chronic diseases related to height? Results from the Portuguese National Health Interview Survey," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 56-66.
    20. Petter Lundborg & Martin Nordin & Dan Olof Rooth, 2018. "The intergenerational transmission of human capital: the role of skills and health," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(4), pages 1035-1065, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    infant mortality; income; adult height; bracketing property; fixed effects estimator; lagged dependent variable estimator;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hka:wpaper:2014-008. 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: Jennifer Pachon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mfichus.html .

    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.