Health Impacts of the Green Revolution: Evidence from 600,000 births across the Developing World

Jan von der Goltz, Aaditya Dar, Ram Fishman, Nathaniel D. Mueller, Prabhat Barnwal, Gordon C. McCord

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

What is the contribution of the ‘Green Revolution’ to improvements in child health during the 20th century? We provide global scale estimates of this relationship by constructing a novel, spatially-precise indicator of modern crop variety (MV) diffusion and leveraging child-level data from over 600,000 children across 21,604 sampling locations in 37 developing countries between 1961–2000. Results indicate that the diffusion of MVs reduced infant mortality by 2.4–5.3 percentage points (from a baseline of 18%), with stronger effects for male infants and among poor households. The sizable contribution of agricultural technology to improved welfare should inform global food and development policy.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102373
Pages (from-to)1-20
Number of pages20
JournalJournal of Health Economics
Volume74
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2020

Keywords

  • Agricultural technology
  • Green Revolution
  • Infant mortality
  • Modern seed varieties

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
  • Health Policy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Health Impacts of the Green Revolution: Evidence from 600,000 births across the Developing World'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this