Aggregate Income Shocks and Infant Mortality in the Developing World
The diffusion of cost-effective life saving technologies has reduced infant mortality in much of the developing world. Income gains may also play a direct, protective role in ensuring child survival, although the empirical findings to date on this...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2007/09/9323631/infant-mortality-over-business-cycle-developing-world http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7627 |
| Summary: | The diffusion of cost-effective life
saving technologies has reduced infant mortality in much of
the developing world. Income gains may also play a direct,
protective role in ensuring child survival, although the
empirical findings to date on this issue have been mixed.
This paper assembles data from Demographic and Health
Surveys (DHS) in 59 countries to analyze the relationship
between changes in per capita GDP and infant mortality. The
authors show that there is a strong, negative association
between changes in per capita GDP and infant mortality- in a
first-differenced specification the implied elasticity of
infant mortality with respect to per capita GDP is
approximately -0.56. In addition to this central result,
two findings are noteworthy. First, although there is some
evidence of changes in the composition of women giving birth
during economic upturns and downturns, the observed changes
in infant mortality are not a result of mothers with
protective characteristics timing fertility to correspond
with the business cycle. Second, the association between
infant mortality and per capita GDP is particularly
pronounced for periods of large contractions in GDP,
suggesting the inability of developing country households or
health systems (or both) to smooth resources. Simple
back-of-the-envelope calculations using the estimates
suggest that there may have been more than 1 million
"excess" deaths in the developing world since 1980
as a result of large, negative contractions in per capita GDP. |
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