TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Akresh, Richard
AU  - Verwimp, Philip
        TI  - Civil War, Crop Failure, and the Health Status of Young Children
        PY  - 2006/Oct/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 2359
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp2359
        AB  - Economic shocks at birth have lasting impacts on children’s health several years after the shock. We calculate height for age z-scores for children under age five using data from a Rwandan nationally representative household survey conducted in 1992. We exploit district and time variation in crop failure and civil conflict to measure the impact of exogenous shocks that children experience at birth on their height several years later. We find that girls born after a shock in a region experiencing these events exhibit 0.72 standard deviations lower height for age z-scores and the impact is worse for poor households. There is no impact of these shocks on boys’ health status. Results are robust to using household level production and rainfall shocks as alternative measures of crop failure. The analysis also contributes to the debate on the economic conditions prevailing on the eve of the Rwandan genocide.
        KW  - Africa
KW  - civil war
KW  - economic shocks
KW  - child health
KW  - rainfall shocks
        ER  -