TY - JOUR AU - Banerjee,Abhijit AU - Duflo,Esther AU - Postel-Vinay,Gilles AU - Watts,Timothy M. TI - Long Run Health Impacts of Income Shocks: Wine and Phylloxera in 19th Century France JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 12895 PY - 2007 Y2 - February 2007 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12895 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12895.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Abhijit Banerjee MIT Department of Economics E52-252d 50 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA 02142-1347 Tel: 617/253-8855 Fax: 617/253-1330 E-Mail: banerjee@mit.edu Esther Duflo Department of Economics MIT, E52-252G 50 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA 02142 Tel: 617/258-7013 Fax: 617/253-6915 E-Mail: eduflo@mit.edu Gilles Postel-Vinay INRA-Lea DELTA 48 BD Jourdan Ecole Normale Superieure 75014 Paris FRANCE E-Mail: gpv@ens.fr Timothy M. Watts MIT Department of Economics Cambridge MA 02139 E-Mail: watts@mit.edu AB - This paper provides estimates of the long-term effects on height and health of a large income shock experienced in early childhood. Phylloxera, an insect that attacks the roots of grape vines, destroyed 40% of French vineyards between 1863 and 1890, causing major income losses among wine growing families. Because the insects spread slowly from the southern coast of France to the rest of the country, Phylloxera affected different regions in different years. We exploit the regional variation in the timing of this shock to identify its effects. We examine the effects on the adult height, health, and life expectancy of children born in the years and regions affected by the Phylloxera. The shock decreased long run height, but it did not affect other dimensions of health, including life expectancy. We find that, at age 20, those born in affected regions were about 1.8 millimeters shorter than others. This estimate implies that children of wine-growing families born when the vines were affected in their regions were 0.6 to 0.9 centimeters shorter than others by age 20. This is a significant effect since average heights grew by only 2 centimeters in the entire 19th century. However, we find no other effect on health, including infant mortality, life expectancy, and morbidity by age 20. ER -