Excluding the Rural Population : The Impact of Public Expenditure on Child Malnutrition in Peru
Why is the urban-rural gap in child malnutrition increasing in Peru despite government efforts to improve the provision of public services? To answer this question, the impact of regional public expenditure in Peru on young children's nutritio...
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Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/10/18412716/excluding-rural-population-impact-public-expenditure-child-malnutrition-peru http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16880 |
Summary: | Why is the urban-rural gap in child
malnutrition increasing in Peru despite government efforts
to improve the provision of public services? To answer this
question, the impact of regional public expenditure in Peru
on young children's nutritional outcomes is examined.
To account for policy endogeneity, public expenditures are
instrumented using unanticipated regional mining revenues.
Even after accounting for changes in expenditure composition
due to increases in mining revenues, public spending has a
significant and positive impact on children's outcomes
only in urban areas. However, even in urban areas, barriers
exist that diminish the effectiveness of public expenditure,
so indigenous and frailer children in these areas do not
benefit from public spending. These children face
constraints that limit their ability to use public services.
This result reveals the paramount importance of initial
conditions. In rural areas, possibly because of the lower
quantity and quality of public services, there is no
positive effect for any children. |
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