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The Impact of Changing Climate on Children's Nutritional Status in Bangladesh

Author

Listed:
  • Hanifi, S.M. Manzoor Ahmed

    (International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research)

  • Menon, Nidhiya

    (Brandeis University)

  • Quisumbing, Agnes

    (International Food Policy Research Institute)

Abstract
This paper studies the impact of climate change on the nutritional status of very young children between the ages of 0 – 3 years by using weather data from the last half century merged with rich information on child, mother and household characteristics in rural coastal Bangladesh. We evaluate the health consequences of rising temperature and relative humidity and varying rainfall jointly. Leveraging a saturated fixed-effects model that controls for annual trends and location-specific seasonality, and that allows the impacts of temperature to vary non-parametrically while rainfall and humidity have flexible non-linear forms, we find that extreme heat and humidity in the month of birth exert significant negative effects on children's nutritional status as measured by mid upper arm circumference. The impact of humidity in particular persists when child, mother and household controls are included. We find that exposure to changing climate in utero and in the month of conception also matters. Possible explanations for our findings include consequences of varying heat, humidity, and rainfall on the extent of pasture, rain-fed and irrigated lands, on the propensity of household out-migration, and on mother's age at first marriage. We employ alternate models and undertake falsification tests to underline the robustness of the estimates. Our results indicate that climate change has real consequences for the health of very young populations who are in vulnerable areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Hanifi, S.M. Manzoor Ahmed & Menon, Nidhiya & Quisumbing, Agnes, 2021. "The Impact of Changing Climate on Children's Nutritional Status in Bangladesh," IZA Discussion Papers 14657, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14657
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    2. Janet Currie & Tom Vogl, 2013. "Early-Life Health and Adult Circumstance in Developing Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 1-36, May.
    3. Zhang, Peng & Zhang, Junjie & Chen, Minpeng, 2017. "Economic impacts of climate change on agriculture: The importance of additional climatic variables other than temperature and precipitation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 8-31.
    4. Agnes R. Quisumbing & Neha Kumar & Julia A. Behrman, 2018. "Do shocks affect men's and women's assets differently? Evidence from Bangladesh and Uganda," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(1), pages 3-34, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Pestel, Nico & Oswald, Andrew J., 2021. "Why Do Relatively Few Economists Work on Climate Change? A Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 14885, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    mid upper arm circumference; children; Bangladesh; rainfall; humidity; temperature; climate change; non-parametric; non-linear;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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