Abstract Unlike extreme malnutrition shocks, such as famine and drought which grab the attention of the media, international aid organizations and policymakers, malnutrition due to food price hikes are often neglected and their impacts on children are not well known. It is well established that malnutrition during the critical periods of early life – between conception and the first 1000 days after birth – has lasting consequences on health and mortality. In this paper, using a uniquely constructed data from Ethiopia that takes advantage of high-frequency local retail food prices, we examine the impact of early life exposure to food price inflation on child mortality. Following survival events since conception, we estimate the causal impact of exposure to inflation during in-utero and infancy. The results show that exposure to a 10 percent inflation in staple food prices during in-utero decreases the survival of children under the age of five by about 5.4 percent. We also find that the impacts are non-linear depending on the specific month of exposure and substantially vary by observable characteristics and the type of staple food.

中文翻译：

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通货膨胀会死吗？暴露于食品通胀和儿童死亡率

摘要 与引起媒体、国际援助组织和决策者关注的饥荒和干旱等极端营养不良冲击不同，食品价格上涨导致的营养不良往往被忽视，其对儿童的影响也不为人所知。众所周知，在生命早期的关键时期——从受孕到出生后的前 1000 天——营养不良会对健康和死亡率产生持久的影响。在本文中，我们利用来自埃塞俄比亚的独特构建数据，利用当地高频零售食品价格，研究了早期食品价格上涨对儿童死亡率的影响。在受孕后的生存事件之后，我们估计了在子宫内和婴儿期暴露于通货膨胀的因果影响。结果表明，子宫内主食价格上涨 10% 会使 5 岁以下儿童的存活率降低约 5.4%。我们还发现，影响是非线性的，具体取决于暴露的特定月份，并因可观察的特征和主食类型而有很大差异。