Early-life conditions and child development: Evidence from a violent conflict
This paper investigates how the exposure to violent conflicts in utero and in early and late childhood affect human capital formation. I focus on a wide range of child development outcomes, including novel cognitive and non-cognitive indicators. Using monthly and municipality-level variation in the...
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Elsevier,
2017-12-01T00:00:00Z.
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| Summary: | This paper investigates how the exposure to violent conflicts in utero and in early and late childhood affect human capital formation. I focus on a wide range of child development outcomes, including novel cognitive and non-cognitive indicators. Using monthly and municipality-level variation in the timing and severity of massacres in Colombia from 1999 to 2007, I show that children exposed to terrorist attacks in utero and in childhood achieve lower height-for-age (0.09 SD) and cognitive outcomes (PPVT falls by 0.18SD and math reasoning and general knowledge fall by 0.16SD), and that these results are robust to controlling for mother fixed-effects. The timing of these exposures matters and differs by type of skill. In terms of parental investments, I find some evidence that parents reinforce the negative effects of violence by increasing their frequency of physical aggression. |
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| Item Description: | 2352-8273 10.1016/j.ssmph.2016.09.012 |