Weather fluctuations, erly-life condictions, parental investiments, and human capital: evidence from Colombia

• Ano de defesa: 2015
• Autor(a) principal: Carrillo Bermúdez, Bladimir
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Viçosa
• Palavras-chave em Português: Capital humano; Capital intelectual; Temperatura atmosférica - Efeito fisiológico; Economia dos Recursos Naturais
• Link de acesso: http://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/7258

Individual capabilities are an important determinant of human capital formation. Recent studies suggest that variations in capabilities stem from individual differences in initial endowments. ln turn, a hypothesis in the medical literature points out that the endowments depend on environmental conditions in utero. Weather shocks are a potential influence of conditions in-utero. Temperature shocks can have adverse consequences on disease environment, and food production, which could increase the risk of adverse birth outcomes. At the same time, parental investment is another important determinant of individual capabilities. The classical economic models of intra-household resource allocation suggest that birth-endowments may affect parental investment decisions. Thus, prenatal exposure to extreme temperatures may affect birth endowments, parental investments and, in turn, human capital formation. We aim to explore the following issues in the Colombian context. First, we seek to understand the relationship between prenatal exposure temperature changes and birth-endowments. Second, we assess how early temperature conditions affects parental investment in human capital. Finally, we will study how human capital consequences of fetal exposure to temperature shocks. Our methodology uses a within-municipality identification strategy. Our findings are divided into two parts. First, we found that exposure to heat waves has adverse consequences on the initial endowments. The most important timing is the first trimester, since we found greater effects. The effects are greater for children from mothers living in rural areas. The second set of results shows that early exposure to heat waves decreases parental investment in child health care and schooling. ln most cases, the most important timing is the first trimester. We found differences by sex and urban/rural status in child health care investments. Specifically, the effects are greater for boys and urban children. In addition, we found that human capital formation is adversely affected. lndeed, individuals exposed to higher temperatures in utero are more likely to be illiterate and have fewer years of education during childhood. Our favorite interpretation is that, given constant prices of child quality and quantity, variations in initial endowments involve externalities in human capital. But we find this is not all that is going on. Rather, birth-endowments are positively related to marginal returns of investment and parents invest to the point Where marginal return is equal to marginal cost. Thus, the negative consequences on the initial endowments results in lower return to investment and parents respond by reallocating resources.