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 -