Famine at birth: long-term health effects of the 1974-75 Bangladesh famine

Eskander, Shaikh M.S.U. ORCID: 0000-0002-3325-5486 and Barbier, Edward B. (2024) Famine at birth: long-term health effects of the 1974-75 Bangladesh famine. Environment and Development Economics. ISSN 1355-770X

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Abstract

We use childhood exposure to disasters as a natural experiment inducing variations in adulthood outcomes. Following the fetal origin hypothesis, we hypothesize that children from households with greater famine exposure will have poorer health outcomes. Employing a unique dataset from Bangladesh, we test this hypothesis for the 1974-75 famine that was largely caused by increased differences between the price of coarse rice and agricultural wages, together with the lack of entitlement to foodgrains for daily wage earners. People from northern regions of Bangladesh were unequally affected by this famine that spanned several months in 1974 and 1975. We find that children surviving the 1974-75 famine have lower health outcomes during their adulthood. Due to the long-lasting effects of such adverse events and their apparent human capital and growth implications, it is important to enact and enforce public policies aimed at ameliorating the immediate harms of such events through helping the poor.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Authors
Divisions:	Grantham Research Institute Climate Change Economics and Policy
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > D History (General) R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences
JEL classification:	Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q54 - Climate; Natural Disasters O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O15 - Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare and Poverty > I31 - General Welfare; Basic Needs; Living Standards; Quality of Life; Happiness
Date Deposited:	07 Jan 2025 15:09
Last Modified:	14 Jan 2025 11:09
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126622

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