Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, United States.
Duke University, Durham, NC, United States.
Econ Hum Biol. 2020 May;37:100843. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2019.100843. Epub 2020 Feb 8.
Recent literature provides evidence that income shocks early in life can have long-run consequences on adult welfare. Rural Brazil frequently suffers from rainfall variations that negatively impact vulnerable households, who often lack the means for coping with these events. This paper evaluates how early-life rainfall shocks influence adult health and socioeconomic outcomes in Brazil. We find evidence that several critical periods can produce long-run consequences. Using rainfall deviations, our two most robust results are that greater rainfall in utero negatively impacts adult incomes (finding that a one standard deviation increase in rainfall causes adult incomes to fall by 7-10 percent) and that greater rainfall in the second and third years of life improve adult health (increasing body mass index by 0.16). However, our results depend crucially on our choices regarding two features. First, our results differ across two common measures of critical periods, which are used to define shocks relative to the timing of one's birth. Second, the way rainfall variation is measured also matters, with use of an extreme weather indicator suggesting heterogeneous effects by gender, with extreme weather negatively impacting women's health (both before and after birth) but positively affecting several men's outcomes (both before and after birth). We find some evidence that mortality selection may drive some of these results. This paper provides further evidence that early-life shocks (from in utero through the third year of life) can cause long-run consequences, but also suggests that more attention should be paid to the specific measurement and timing of rainfall shocks.
最近的文献提供了证据，表明人生早期的收入冲击会对成年人的福利产生长期影响。巴西农村经常受到降雨变化的影响，这些变化对脆弱家庭产生负面影响，这些家庭往往缺乏应对这些事件的手段。本文评估了人生早期的降雨冲击如何影响巴西成年人的健康和社会经济结果。我们有证据表明，几个关键时期可能会产生长期影响。利用降雨偏差，我们得到了两个最可靠的结果：胎儿期的降雨量增加会对成年人的收入产生负面影响（发现降雨量增加一个标准差会导致成年人的收入下降 7-10%），而生命的第二和第三年会增加成年人的健康（使体重指数增加 0.16）。然而，我们的结果取决于我们在两个特征上的选择。首先，我们的结果在两种常见的关键时期衡量标准上存在差异，这些标准用于定义相对于一个人出生时间的冲击。其次，降雨量变化的衡量方式也很重要，使用极端天气指标表明，性别之间存在异质效应，极端天气对女性的健康（出生前后）产生负面影响，但对一些男性的结果（出生前后）产生积极影响。我们发现一些证据表明，死亡率选择可能导致了其中的一些结果。本文进一步证明了人生早期的冲击（从胎儿期到三岁）会导致长期后果，但也表明应该更加关注降雨冲击的具体测量和时间。
