Children in West Bengal and Bangladesh are presumed to share the same distribution of genetic height potential. In West Bengal they are richer, on average, and are therefore slightly taller. However, when wealth is held constant, children in Bangladesh are taller. This gap can be fully accounted for by differences in open defecation, and especially by open defecation in combination with differences in women’s status and maternal nutrition.
Arabinda Ghosh is with the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh; Aashish Gupta is in the Indian Administrative Service, West Bengal; and Dean Spears (dean@riceinstitute.org) is with the Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics, and RICE.
Our conclusions are our own and do not necessarily represent the views of any organisation.
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