CfP: Joint LSE and CEPR Conference
Stunting is one of the most important and widely-used indicators of
malnutrition. Accordingly, the Millennium Development Goals and
Sustainable Development Goals have identified the reduction of stunting
rates as a key priority of development policy. While
some countries, such as Nepal and Bangladesh, have experienced rapid
declines in stunting rates (Headey et al., 2015; Headey and Hoddinott,
2015), stunting has remained extremely persistent in other countries,
such as India (Subramanyan et al., 2011; Jayachandran
and Pande, 2016). Although recent work has found a weak association
between economic growth and reductions in stunting rates (Vollmer et
al., 2014), there remains considerable debate among development
professionals and academics about the best way forward.
Developing alongside this modern literature is one that offers a
valuable long-run perspective. Over the last few years, economic
historians have focused on issues of how children’s growth has changed
over time, and why these growth patterns have differed across
stages in a country’s development trajectory. Using a wealth of precise
data on historical birth weights (Schneider, 2017), growth faltering in
childhood (Roberts and Warren, 2016; Arthi and Schneider, 2017) and
adolescent growth patterns (Horrell and Oxley,
2016; Gao and Schneider, 2017; Schneider and Ogasawara, 2017), this
literature has shown that children’s growth in the nineteenth century
was similar to that observed in developing countries today. As such, an
understanding of historical trends in child growth
may lend insight into the kinds of policies and interventions that
might reduce stunting rates in low-income settings today.
This conference seeks to bring together academics, policymakers, and
development professionals to discuss how these two streams of research
can inform current approaches to malnutrition; for instance, what
lessons can long-run and global perspectives on changes
in children’s growth provide for the current fight against childhood
stunting? The conference will be interdisciplinary, drawing perspectives
from the fields of economic history, development economics, sociology,
epidemiology, statistics, paediatrics, and
medicine more broadly. It will also be practical and policy-oriented,
favouring research that can speak to present-day concerns.
Thus, we invite papers for presentation on the following three themes (or closely related questions):
1. How has the growth pattern of children (their birth weight, degree of
growth faltering, velocity of growth, timing of the pubertal growth
spurt, and final adult height) changed over time and varied across
space?
• How does stunting vary around the world?
• What is the global prevalence of the double burden of both over- and under-nutrition?
• To what extent is there inequality in stunting within a single country, for instance by socioeconomic status and gender?
2. What factors influence changes in growth faltering or in children’s growth patterns?
• What factors have led to changes in stunting rates?
• What factors have led to positive changes in child growth historically?
• What lessons do these developments provide for fighting malnutrition in the future?
3. How do we measure disruption in the growth pattern?
• Do the current fetal, infant and child growth standards need to be revisited?
• Are new methods required for measuring growth disruption?
• Is the stunting rate the best measure for capturing the complexity of malnutrition?
The conference will include a keynote lecture by John Hoddinott
(Cornell) and approximately 20 papers, with those participants who are
not giving papers acting as discussants. There will also be an extended
plenary discussion at the end of the second day, focussing
on wider themes arising from the workshop. This session will give
participants the opportunity to discuss how researchers, policymakers,
and development professionals can work together better to fight against
poor child health today.
The conference is sponsored by the Centre for Economic Policy Research
(CEPR) Economic History Programme, and has been generously funded by the
LSE Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fund and the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC). This support enables
us to substantially subsidise travel expenses and cover accommodation
for all participants.
If you wish to present a paper at the conference, please email Chloe Smith at
csmith@cepr.org attaching a 300-word abstract and a current CV. If
you would like to participate in the conference and act as a discussant,
please submit a brief paragraph about why you would like to participate
along with a CV to Chloe Smith as well. Please
indicate in your email whether you will be able to cover your own
travel and accommodation costs, or whether you will require funding. The
deadline for replies is 18:00 (GMT) on Friday 28 April 2017. You may
also like to read our Guidelines on how to register
online for CEPR Meetings at
http://www.cepr.org/content/
Important dates:
28 April 2017 at 18:00 GMT: 300-word abstract submission deadline
12 May 2017: Applicants informed about whether their paper has been accepted
21 August 2017: Complete papers need to be submitted to Tracy Keefe (T.J.Keefe@lse.ac.uk) to give discussants time to read the papers.
7-8 September 2017: Conference at the LSE in London