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Economic Development and the Quality of Life of Children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2010

Marcelo Delajara
Marcelo Delajara
Affiliation:
Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21a
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Abstract

Historical studies show that the average height of Western European children began its secular growth in 1850 only after a period of decline and stagnation which had started around 1750. We argue that the initial downturn in heights is related to the demographic transition, and show that an extension of the neoclassical model of economic growth can explain the observed phenomena. We test whether the predictions of the model hold for a cross-section of contemporary countries, and we find that stature is indeed negatively associated with income per capita and fertility for countries with an income per capita below a given threshold. As a final exercise, we ask whether these cross-country estimates explain the improvement in children's height observed in the last hundred and fifty years.

Resumen

Los estudios históricos muestran que el crecimiento secular de la estatura media de los niños europeos occidentales comenzó en 1850 y fue precedido por cien años de declive y estancamiento. Conjeturamos que la caída inicial en las estaturas está relacionada con la transición demográfica y mostramos que una extensión del modelo neoclásico de crecimiento económico puede explicar el fenómeno. Verificamos que las predicciones del modelo se cumplen en el presente para un corte transversal de países y encontramos que, en países con bajo ingreso por habitante, la estatura media de los niños está negativamente asociada con el ingreso per capita y con la fecundidad. Como ejercicio final, nos preguntamos si estas estimaciones explican el cambio en la estatura media observado en el último siglo y medio.

Keywords

crecimiento económicofecundidadcalidad de vidaestatura infantilanálisis de sección cruzadaeconomic growthfertilityquality of lifechildren's staturecrosscountry analysis

JEL classification

N3: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy I31: General Welfare, Well-Being I12: Health Behavior J13: Fertility • Family Planning • Child Care • Children • Youth O11: Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
Type
Artículos
Information
Revista de Historia Economica - Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 13 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Instituto Figuerola de Historia y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid 2004

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