TY  - JOUR
AU  - Maccini,Sharon L.
AU  - Yang,Dean
TI  - Under the Weather: Health, Schooling, and Economic Consequences of Early-Life Rainfall
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14031
PY  - 2008
Y2  - May 2008
DO  - 10.3386/w14031
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14031
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14031.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Sharon L. Maccini
University of Michigan
735 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
E-Mail: smaccini@umich.edu

Dean Yang
University of Michigan
Department of Economics and
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
735 S. State Street, Room 3316
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tel: 734/764-6158
Fax: 734/763-9181
E-Mail: deanyang@umich.edu
AB  - How sensitive is long-run individual well-being to environmental conditions early in life? This paper examines the effect of weather conditions around the time of birth on the health, education, and socioeconomic outcomes of Indonesian adults born between 1953 and 1974. We link historical rainfall for each individual's birth-year and birth-location with current adult outcomes from the 2000 wave of the Indonesia Family Life Survey. Higher early-life rainfall has large positive effects on the adult outcomes of women, but not of men. Women with 20% higher rainfall (relative to normal local rainfall) in their year and location of birth are 3.8 percentage points less likely to self-report poor or very poor health, attain 0.57 centimeters greater height, complete 0.22 more grades of schooling, and live in households that score 0.12 standard deviations higher on an asset index. These patterns most plausibly reflect a positive impact of rainfall on agricultural output, leading to higher household incomes and food availability and better health for infant girls. We present suggestive evidence that eventual benefits for adult women's socioeconomic status are most strongly mediated by improved schooling attainment, which in turn improves socioeconomic status in adulthood.
ER  -