Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP9032
Authors: Stefan Dercon; Alan Sanchez
Abstract: Both cognitive and non-cognitive skills matter to understand a child's opportunities and outcomes in adulthood. However, it is unclear how non-cognitive skills are acquired and what the role played by household investments is in this process. Motivated by suggestions from the medical literature and by the recent literature on human skill formation, this paper uses longitudinal data from children growing up in developing countries to study the role of early nutritional history in shaping this type of skills. We link height-for-age at the age of 7 to 8 to a set of psychosocial competencies measured at the age of 11 to 12 that are known to be correlated with earnings during adulthood: self-efficacy, self-esteem and aspirations. We find that height-for-age predicts the three observed psychosocial measures. Auxiliary estimations suggest that the relationship found is unlikely to be mediated by the effect that undernutrition can have on academic performance.
Keywords: Human Capital; Noncognitive Skills; Psychosocial Competencies; Undernutrition
JEL Codes: I12; J13; O12; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| height-for-age at ages 7 to 8 (Y10) | self-efficacy at ages 11 to 12 (I24) |
| height-for-age at ages 7 to 8 (Y10) | self-esteem at ages 11 to 12 (I24) |
| height-for-age at ages 7 to 8 (Y10) | educational aspirations at ages 11 to 12 (I21) |
| height-for-age at ages 7 to 8 (Y10) | psychosocial competencies at ages 11 to 12 (I24) |
| height-for-age at ages 7 to 8 (Y10) | psychosocial competencies at ages 11 to 12 (I24) |
| household consumption per capita (D10) | psychosocial competencies (M14) |
| maternal psychosocial competencies (J13) | psychosocial competencies (M14) |