We thank the RLMS team at the University of North Carolina for designing, collecting and making the survey data accessible, as well as Judy Thornton and Dan Berkowitz for providing us with additional data series from Goskomstat, and Marianne Bertrand, John Gibson, Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia and two anonymous referees for comments. Financial support from the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (T32 HD07329 and R01HD40245) and the National Institute on Aging (R01AG08291) is gratefully acknowledged. This article was worked on while Stillman was an NICHD post-doctoral trainee at RAND and a senior research economist at the New Zealand Department of Labour. The views represented in this article are the authors’ own and should not be taken to represent the views of any organisation.
1468-0297/asset/olbannerleft.gif?v=1&s=1af3b26d7b3c49289a4d2ffedc5d9b29e681ebe0)
1468-0297/asset/ecoj_centre.gif?v=1&s=011eaeeafeffba596483ec623ce4b679dbe5c83f)
1468-0297/asset/ecoj_right.gif?v=1&s=af2049451bcddd5018e9fd2c36fddf34bc9e0a5c)
Nutritional Status During an Economic Crisis: Evidence from Russia†
Article first published online: 14 AUG 2008
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02174.x
© The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2008
Additional Information
How to Cite
Stillman, S. and Thomas, D. (2008), Nutritional Status During an Economic Crisis: Evidence from Russia. The Economic Journal, 118: 1385–1417. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02174.x
- †
Publication History
- Issue published online: 14 AUG 2008
- Article first published online: 14 AUG 2008
- Submitted: 22 June 2004 Accepted: 16 July 2007
- Abstract
- Article
- References
- Cited By
Between 1996 and 1998, Russia experienced a spectacular decline in economic activity which was followed by a dramatic rebound between 1998 and 2000. We use panel data to examine the impact of variation in household resources on six dimensions of nutritional status, distinguishing longer-run from short-term fluctuations in resources. Nutritional status is very resilient to short-term variation in household resources. Gross energy intake, adult weight and child stature change very little as expenditure deviates from its long-run average. Longer-run resources have a substantively large, positive and significant effect on energy intake, diet quality, adult weight and child stature. The evidence indicates that individuals and households are able to weather short-term fluctuations in economic resources, at least in terms of maintaining body mass and energy intake.