Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/245538 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 14487
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We use newly collected individual-level hunger recall information from the China Family Panel Survey to estimate the causal effect of undernourishment on later-life health. We develop a Two-Sample Instrumental Variable (TSIV) estimator that can deal with heterogeneous samples. We find a non-linear relationship between mortality rates, a commonly used famine indicator, and the individual hunger experience. The nonlinearity in famine exposure may explain the variation in the famine's effect on later life health found in previous studies. We also find that exposure to famine-induced hunger early in life leads to worse health among females fifty years later. This effect is much larger than the reduced-form effect found in previous studies. For males, we find no impact.
Subjects: 
famine
hunger
developmental origins
two-sample instrumental variable
JEL: 
I12
J11
C21
C26
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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