Political violence, adverse shocks and child malnutrition: Empirical evidence from Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

We analyze the combined effect of political violence and adverse climatic and health shocks on child nutrition using longitudinal data from Andhra Pradesh, India. The paper shows three key results using two-stage least square (2SLS) models: (i) the presence of political violence reduces the mean height-for-age z-scores of children by between 0.4 and 0.9 standard deviations and reduces the mean weight-for-age z-scores of children by between 0.3 and 0.6 standard deviations; (ii) political violence generates such a large negative effect on the long-term nutrition of children (measured by height-for-age z-scores) through a reduction of the ability of households to cope with drought and illness; and (iii) drought and illness have an adverse effect on child nutrition in Andhra Pradesh only in violence-affected communities. The 2SLS results are robust to a wide range of robustness tests. Potential mechanisms explaining the strong joint welfare effect of conflict and adverse shocks are the failure of economic coping strategies in areas of violence and restricted access to public goods and services.

Keywords: Conflict; Drought; India; Malnutrition; Naxal.