The Aggregate Income Losses from Childhood Stunting and the Returns to a Nutrition Intervention Aimed at Reducing Stunting

This paper undertakes two calculations, one for all developing countries, the other for 34 developing countries that together account for 90 percent of the world's stunted children. The first calculation asks how much lower a country's pe...

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Main Authors: Galasso, Emanuela, Wagstaff, Adam
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/528901533144584145/The-aggregate-income-losses-from-childhood-stunting-and-the-returns-to-a-nutrition-intervention-aimed-at-reducing-stunting
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30108
id okr-10986-30108
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-301082021-09-16T22:16:45Z The Aggregate Income Losses from Childhood Stunting and the Returns to a Nutrition Intervention Aimed at Reducing Stunting Galasso, Emanuela Wagstaff, Adam STUNTING NUTRITION WAGES COGNITIVE SKILLS RATE OF RETURN PER CAPITA INCOME SOCIAL ASSISTANCE NUTRITION INTERVENTION This paper undertakes two calculations, one for all developing countries, the other for 34 developing countries that together account for 90 percent of the world's stunted children. The first calculation asks how much lower a country's per capita income is today as a result of some of its workers having been stunted in childhood. The analysis uses a development accounting framework, relying on micro-econometric estimates of the effects of childhood stunting on adult wages, through the effects on years of schooling, cognitive skills, and height, parsing out the relative contribution of each set of returns to avoid double counting. The estimates show that, on average, the per capita income penalty from stunting is around 7 percent. The second calculation estimates the economic value and the costs associated with scaling up a package of nutrition interventions using the same methodology and set of assumptions used in the first calculation. The analysis considers a package of 10 nutrition interventions for which data are available on the effects and costs. The estimated rate-of-return from gradually introducing this program over a period of 10 years in the 34 countries is17 percent, and the corresponding benefit-cost ratio is 15:1. 2018-08-02T15:44:44Z 2018-08-02T15:44:44Z 2018-08 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/528901533144584145/The-aggregate-income-losses-from-childhood-stunting-and-the-returns-to-a-nutrition-intervention-aimed-at-reducing-stunting http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30108 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8536 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic STUNTING
NUTRITION
WAGES
COGNITIVE SKILLS
RATE OF RETURN
PER CAPITA INCOME
SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
NUTRITION INTERVENTION
spellingShingle STUNTING
NUTRITION
WAGES
COGNITIVE SKILLS
RATE OF RETURN
PER CAPITA INCOME
SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
NUTRITION INTERVENTION
Galasso, Emanuela
Wagstaff, Adam
The Aggregate Income Losses from Childhood Stunting and the Returns to a Nutrition Intervention Aimed at Reducing Stunting
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8536
description This paper undertakes two calculations, one for all developing countries, the other for 34 developing countries that together account for 90 percent of the world's stunted children. The first calculation asks how much lower a country's per capita income is today as a result of some of its workers having been stunted in childhood. The analysis uses a development accounting framework, relying on micro-econometric estimates of the effects of childhood stunting on adult wages, through the effects on years of schooling, cognitive skills, and height, parsing out the relative contribution of each set of returns to avoid double counting. The estimates show that, on average, the per capita income penalty from stunting is around 7 percent. The second calculation estimates the economic value and the costs associated with scaling up a package of nutrition interventions using the same methodology and set of assumptions used in the first calculation. The analysis considers a package of 10 nutrition interventions for which data are available on the effects and costs. The estimated rate-of-return from gradually introducing this program over a period of 10 years in the 34 countries is17 percent, and the corresponding benefit-cost ratio is 15:1.
format Working Paper
author Galasso, Emanuela
Wagstaff, Adam
author_facet Galasso, Emanuela
Wagstaff, Adam
author_sort Galasso, Emanuela
title The Aggregate Income Losses from Childhood Stunting and the Returns to a Nutrition Intervention Aimed at Reducing Stunting
title_short The Aggregate Income Losses from Childhood Stunting and the Returns to a Nutrition Intervention Aimed at Reducing Stunting
title_full The Aggregate Income Losses from Childhood Stunting and the Returns to a Nutrition Intervention Aimed at Reducing Stunting
title_fullStr The Aggregate Income Losses from Childhood Stunting and the Returns to a Nutrition Intervention Aimed at Reducing Stunting
title_full_unstemmed The Aggregate Income Losses from Childhood Stunting and the Returns to a Nutrition Intervention Aimed at Reducing Stunting
title_sort aggregate income losses from childhood stunting and the returns to a nutrition intervention aimed at reducing stunting
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2018
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/528901533144584145/The-aggregate-income-losses-from-childhood-stunting-and-the-returns-to-a-nutrition-intervention-aimed-at-reducing-stunting
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30108
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