Mitigating the Health Impact of a Famine: Evidence from the 1985 Ethiopian Emergency Food Aid

Kyungbo Han; Salvatore Di Falco

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103531

Mitigating the Health Impact of a Famine: Evidence from the 1985 Ethiopian Emergency Food Aid

Kyungbo Han
, Salvatore Di Falco

Department of Economics

Geneva School of Economics and Management

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We examine the long-term mitigating impact of emergency food aid on health status using the food aid response to the Ethiopian famine in 1984 as a case study. Employing novel geospatial data on the location of relief camps where emergency food was distributed, we estimate the effect of proximity to a camp on height in adulthood. We compare different birth timings (born before or during versus after the relief operation) and different villages of birth (born close to versus far from a camp), exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in accessibility to emergency aid. Access to relief operation in early childhood leads to higher stature in adulthood. Aid beneficiaries also display higher later-life labor productivity in the agricultural sector, which suggests that the long-term health consequence of emergency aid may have translated into gains in agricultural productivity.

Original language	English
Article number	103531
Journal	Journal of Development Economics
Volume	176
Early online date	10 May 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103531
Publication status	Published - 1 Sept 2025

Data Availability Statement

Data will be made available on request.

Funding

This research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant number: 100018182206). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Funders	Funder number
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung	100018182206

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 1 No Poverty
SDG 2 Zero Hunger
SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
SDG 13 Climate Action

Keywords

Emergency aid
Relief operation
Health
Children
Humanitarian crisis
Famine

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10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103531Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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AB - We examine the long-term mitigating impact of emergency food aid on health status using the food aid response to the Ethiopian famine in 1984 as a case study. Employing novel geospatial data on the location of relief camps where emergency food was distributed, we estimate the effect of proximity to a camp on height in adulthood. We compare different birth timings (born before or during versus after the relief operation) and different villages of birth (born close to versus far from a camp), exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in accessibility to emergency aid. Access to relief operation in early childhood leads to higher stature in adulthood. Aid beneficiaries also display higher later-life labor productivity in the agricultural sector, which suggests that the long-term health consequence of emergency aid may have translated into gains in agricultural productivity.

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KW - Health

KW - Children

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KW - Famine

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ER -

Mitigating the Health Impact of a Famine: Evidence from the 1985 Ethiopian Emergency Food Aid

Abstract

Data Availability Statement

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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