Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth

This paper argues that indicators of anthropometric shortfall--especially low height and low weight-for-age--are uniquely suited for assessing absolute deprivation in developing countries. Anthropometric indicators are relatively precise, readily available for most countries, reflect the preferences...

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Main Author:	Heltberg, Rasmus
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Subjects:	Health Production I120 Measurement and Analysis of Poverty I320 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150 Measurement of Economic Growth Aggregate Productivity Cross-Country Output Convergence O470
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5829

id	okr-10986-5829
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-58292021-04-23T14:02:23Z Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth Heltberg, Rasmus Health Production I120 Measurement and Analysis of Poverty I320 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150 Measurement of Economic Growth Aggregate Productivity Cross-Country Output Convergence O470 This paper argues that indicators of anthropometric shortfall--especially low height and low weight-for-age--are uniquely suited for assessing absolute deprivation in developing countries. Anthropometric indicators are relatively precise, readily available for most countries, reflect the preferences and concerns of many poor people, consistent with reckoning the phenomenon directly in the space of functionings, intuitive, easy to use for advocacy, and consistent over time and across subgroups. Anthropometric indicators can therefore complement (but not replace) standard indicators of income/consumption poverty, especially for comparisons across subgroups, within households, across countries, and in the long run. In addition, the paper analyses spells of change in malnutrition over time, finding that the association between economic growth and chronic child malnutrition is very small (but statistically significant) and much lower than the elasticity of growth on poverty. The policy implication of this finding is that direct interventions aimed at reducing infant malnutrition are required. 2012-03-30T07:34:45Z 2012-03-30T07:34:45Z 2009 Journal Article Health Economics 10579230 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5829 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
topic	Health Production I120 Measurement and Analysis of Poverty I320 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150 Measurement of Economic Growth Aggregate Productivity Cross-Country Output Convergence O470
spellingShingle	Health Production I120 Measurement and Analysis of Poverty I320 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150 Measurement of Economic Growth Aggregate Productivity Cross-Country Output Convergence O470 Heltberg, Rasmus Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	This paper argues that indicators of anthropometric shortfall--especially low height and low weight-for-age--are uniquely suited for assessing absolute deprivation in developing countries. Anthropometric indicators are relatively precise, readily available for most countries, reflect the preferences and concerns of many poor people, consistent with reckoning the phenomenon directly in the space of functionings, intuitive, easy to use for advocacy, and consistent over time and across subgroups. Anthropometric indicators can therefore complement (but not replace) standard indicators of income/consumption poverty, especially for comparisons across subgroups, within households, across countries, and in the long run. In addition, the paper analyses spells of change in malnutrition over time, finding that the association between economic growth and chronic child malnutrition is very small (but statistically significant) and much lower than the elasticity of growth on poverty. The policy implication of this finding is that direct interventions aimed at reducing infant malnutrition are required.
format	Journal Article
author	Heltberg, Rasmus
author_facet	Heltberg, Rasmus
author_sort	Heltberg, Rasmus
title	Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth
title_short	Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth
title_full	Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth
title_fullStr	Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth
title_full_unstemmed	Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth
title_sort	malnutrition, poverty, and economic growth
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5829
_version_	1764396465081286656

Malnutrition, Poverty, and Economic Growth

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