The impacts of rainfall shocks on birth weight in Vietnam

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the less discernible cost of rainfall shocks to birth weight outcomes in the context of Vietnam. Exploiting the variation across districts and conception months-years, we show that in-utero exposure to excessive and deficient rainfall shocks in the second trimester reduces child’s weight at birth by 3.5% (97 grams) and 3.1% (87 grams), respectively. Besides, infants born to poor, rural, and low-educated mothers are especially vulnerable. Since poor infant health can leave persistent effects over the life cycle, the study calls for more efforts in intervention measures to mitigate the impacts of rainfall shocks.