INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD – IIMA
A Research Seminar on ‘Birth Weight and Cognitive Development during Childhood: Evidence from India’ by Prof. Santosh Kumar Sam Houston State University, Texas.
Abstract:
Health at birth is an important indicator of human capital development over the life course. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Young Lives survey and employs instrumental variable regression models to estimate the effect of birth weight on cognitive development during childhood in India. We find that a 10 percent increase in birth weight increases cognitive test score by 8.1 percent or 0.11 standard deviations at ages 5-8 years. Low birth weight infants experienced a lower test score compared with normal birth weight infants. The positive effect of birth weight on a cognitive test score is larger for boys, children from rural or poor households, and those with less-educated mothers. Our findings suggest that health policies designed to improve birth weight could improve human capital in resource-poor settings.
About the Speaker:
Santosh Kumar, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Economics at Sam Houston State University, Texas, USA. An applied micro-economist by training, his research interests are into development economics, global health, and impact evaluation. His research aims to identify the interlinkages between child & maternal health, human capital, and economic performance. Specifically, his research strives to understand the impacts of fetal & early childhood conditions on human capital formation in low-income countries. Before joining the faculty at Sam Houston, Dr. Kumar has worked at the University of Washington, Seattle and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. Dr. Kumar earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Houston. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Delhi University and his Master of Arts in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics.
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