Early Life Nutrition and Subsequent Education, Health, Wage, and Intergenerational Effects
This paper first summarizes recent research in developing countries that is surveyed in prominent Lancet articles and that reports, albeit based on relatively few systematic studies, substantial associations between early life nutrition and subsequent education, health, wage, and intergenerational outcomes. The rest of the paper summarizes further evidence. The next section summarizes some of the strongest micro-level evidence available based on panel data over 35 years from Guatemala on causal effects of early life nutritional improvements on adult cognitive skills and wage rates and offspring anthropometric outcomes. The subsequent section summarizes some benefit-cost analyses for early life nutritional interventions that led to such interventions being ranked highly among interventions of all types, largely on the basis of benefit-cost ratios by prominent economists in the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus. The studies reviewed in this paper indicate that improved early life nutrition in poorly nourished populations may have substantial causal effects on improving productivity and saving resources over the life cycle and into the next generation and may have benefits that substantially outweigh the costs. Thus, in addition to important direct intrinsic welfare benefits, better early life nutrition in such contexts should be a high priority in strategies for increasing growth and productivity.
Summary: | This paper first summarizes recent
research in developing countries that is surveyed in
prominent Lancet articles and that reports, albeit based on
relatively few systematic studies, substantial associations
between early life nutrition and subsequent education,
health, wage, and intergenerational outcomes. The rest of
the paper summarizes further evidence. The next section
summarizes some of the strongest micro-level evidence
available based on panel data over 35 years from Guatemala
on causal effects of early life nutritional improvements on
adult cognitive skills and wage rates and offspring
anthropometric outcomes. The subsequent section summarizes
some benefit-cost analyses for early life nutritional
interventions that led to such interventions being ranked
highly among interventions of all types, largely on the
basis of benefit-cost ratios by prominent economists in the
2004 Copenhagen Consensus. The studies reviewed in this
paper indicate that improved early life nutrition in poorly
nourished populations may have substantial causal effects on
improving productivity and saving resources over the life
cycle and into the next generation and may have benefits
that substantially outweigh the costs. Thus, in addition to
important direct intrinsic welfare benefits, better early
life nutrition in such contexts should be a high priority in
strategies for increasing growth and productivity. |
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