Civil War, Crop Failure, and Child Stunting in Rwanda

Question 1

aim of the akresh paper

Answer 1

how exposure to two types of endogenous shocks at birth leads to worse health outcomes in the short run, several years after the shock

Question 2

what is the case study for the akresh paper

Answer 2

• focus on the impact of these two types of shocks on the health of Rwandan children born between 1987 and 1991
• a localized extremely severe crop failure in Southern Rwanda
• an outbreak of civil conflict in Northern Rwanda

Question 3

identification strategy for akresh

Answer 3

exploit the local nature of the crop failure and the civil war to identify the causal effect of these exogenous shocks on child health

Question 4

children’s height for age z score

Answer 4

the difference between the child’s height and the mean height of the same-aged international reference population, divided by the standard deviation of the reference population

Question 5

first difference in the akresh paper

Answer 5

affected areas - non affected areas
- crop failure provinces - rest of country
- conflict affect provinces - rest of country

Question 6

second difference in akresh

Answer 6

born during the shocks - born outside the shock
- born during the crop failure - not born
- born during the conflict - not bborn

Question 7

the difference in differences result z scores can be interpreted

Answer 7

as the impact of the crop failure / conflict on children’s height for age z scores under the assumption that without the crop failure / conflict, children in the affected region would have experienced the same change in average height for age z scores as children in the rest of the country

Question 8

three main findings akresh

Answer 8

• children born during the civil war in the conflict region, girls as well as boys, from poor as well as non poor households, are negatively affected by this war exposure with height for age z scores over one standard deviation lower
• girls born during a crop failure in the affected regions are particularly vulnerable with these girls having 0.86 standard deviations lower height for age z scores and the impact is even worse for girls in poor households
• we find no evidence of a negative impact of crop failure exposure on the health status of boys or children in non poor households