Impact of Typhoons on Children's Human Capital Investments in Filipino Households

<p>Typhoons are a unique type of natural disaster affecting both developing and developed countries, causing both short and long-term destruction. Typhoons are random both in intensity and frequency, making them difficult to predict their strength and when they will strike. With global climate change, typhoons are expected to increase in both frequency and magnitude, making it important to understand their impacts. This study uses DHS data from the Philippines and a unique Filipino typhoon data set covering they years 1989-2008 to explore how typhoons affect household allocation of basic human capital investments, such as breastfeeding duration. Using OLS estimation and a distributed lag model, I find that children are significantly breastfed about 4.8 months less on average in the year following a storm. This effect is mostly seen in lower socioeconomic households, suggesting that loss of income and adaptive behaviors of wealthier households are channels for these allocation decisions. No apparent gender differences were observed.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Zitelli, Kate

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Jesse Anttila-Hughes

• typhoons
• Philippines
• breastfeeding
• human capital investments
• Growth and Development
• Health Economics
• International Economics

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/91

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.usfca.edu:thes-1098