The Height Production Function from Birth to Early Adulthood

Elisabetta De Cao, Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata"

This paper studies the determinants of height from birth to early adulthood through a height production function. It uses the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey where filipino children born in 1983 are followed for 22 years. The inputs concern genetic, environmental and age factors. The production function is estimated separately for boys and girls and two different specifications are implemented. Both consider only lagged inputs and account for the child's age when height is measured and for the distance between the inputs application and the height measurement. The endogeneity of some of the inputs is solved applying an instrumental variables approach. The result is the quantitative change in height due to a ceteris-paribus e?ect of an input. In order diseases applied at the youngest ages, birthweight and nutrition applied at the latest ages are the inputs that cause the biggest change in height with a variation of 0.1-2 cm.