Human Development

Causes and consequences of low caloric intake in India: Nutrition, productivity, and cognition

Sendhil Mullainathan

Heather Schofield

31 March 2016

2

min read

Notes from the Field

IGC Research on India

Explainers

Many of the world’s poor consume very few calories. Because calories are not just consumption, but also an input into production, this low consumption may dampen labour productivity and impede decision-making. This project involves an experiment with cycle-rickshaw peddlers in Chennai to study potential constraints limiting investment, and investigate why caloric intake remains low despite potentially high monetary returns.

Sendhil Mullainathan

University of Chicago Booth

Heather Schofield

University of Pennsylvania

Subscribe Now

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Related

India’s primary healthcare reform: Improved service delivery, reduced mortality

Youth’s digital readiness in rural India

Lighting the path to learning: Can electricity boost children’s test scores?

Reflections on how the New Education Policy plays out in the classroom

The unintended effect of alcohol prohibition on adolescents’ mental health

How police patrols reduced severe street harassment in India

ASER 2024: More than a post-pandemic recovery in learning

Enhancing foundational learning through parent-teacher collaboration

The wide-ranging benefits of India’s Public Distribution System

Network membership and demand for health insurance

Powering progress: How reliable community electrification boosts women’s autonomy

Empowering daughters: How conditional cash transfers can shift cultural norms

Competitive jobseekers: When sharing less leaves firms at a loss

Street safety and girls’ secondary schooling in India

Contraception as a pathway to better child nutrition and health

Moratorium on new subsidies to garner resources for public spending on health

Does subsidising publicly provided services discipline markets or distort demand?

Did Covid-19 pandemic increase incidence of low-birth-weight among newborns?

India’s massive employment problem and some ways out

Managing India’s demographic transition

Managing India’s demographic transition

Historical land policies and socioeconomic development: The case of Uttar Pradesh

Reversing the trend: Improving toilet access for better test scores

Water water everywhere, not a drop to drink? Information and enabling access to clean water

How teachers’ beliefs can shape motivation and student learning

Aiding the search for good jobs: Evidence from Uganda

How investing in girls’ education can reduce domestic violence in India

Enhancing secondary school learning: Role of remedial camps and teacher flexibility

Transforming menstrual hygiene in India

What ASER 2023 reveals about the gender gap in confidence

Can safe drinking water improve children’s educational outcomes?

The tribal communities of central India: Challenges and way forward

Improving healthcare access to address the rise in non-communicable diseases among Indian women

Second Ashok Kotwal Memorial Lecture: Inequality, Labour and Social Democracy

Impact of India’s Mission Parivar Vikas on fertility rates and family planning

Persistent struggle for learning: A tale of tribal regions

How socioeconomic status shapes parental beliefs about child academic achievement

The role of caste and gender in determining science education in India

Home-based learning through low-cost mobile teaching: Findings from Odisha

The ‘invisible’ disability of mental illness: Barriers to social security access

Making menstrual health a welfare priority: Insights from three states

How Prayagraj is addressing learning poverty in its Anganwadis

Building resilient education systems: Evidence from five countries

How does a ban on sex-selective abortions affect child health?

Overcoming socio-cultural resistance towards biogas technology

School absences as an early warning system

Women empowerment in India: Does colonial history matter?

Nutritional penalty of motherhood: Can midday meals for children also improve their mothers’ health outcomes?

Access to clean drinking water and women’s safety in India

Foundational learning outcomes: More recovery than loss

Herself, and her child: Are they worse off due to Covid-19?

Old habits and new norms

Sweet cash: Women’s demand for healthcare in developing countries

Empowering patients with information to improve hospital accountability

The unintended positive consequences of India’s safe motherhood programme

Low-tech and teacher support interventions during school closures

A data story on female child marriage in India

Time poverty for girls: Implications for educational attainment and workforce participation

Understanding intergenerational educational mobility with conflicting evidence

Is open defecation still prevalent in rural north India?

Phone-based assessment data: Triangulating schools’ learning outcomes

Credit cooperatives: Promoting worker well-being during crises?

India’s early years mathematics curriculum: Continuity, discontinuity and progression

Challenges in access to secondary education in India

Tracking learning outcomes: ASER’s work through the pandemic

Tracking learning outcomes: ASER’s work through the pandemic

Insuring India: PM-JAY’s targeting problem

The future of old times

High scoring but poor: The misallocation of talent in higher education

Illam Thedi Kalvi: A booster shot for post-Covid education

Access to antenatal care and its influence on children’s cognitive development

The impact of community-based depression treatment in India

Remedying poor student assessment data in India

To invest in sanitation or not? The role of gender differences in perceptions

Access to health insurance in India: Direct and spillover effects

Assessing the extent and fiscal cost of teacher shortages in India

Using machine learning to target neonatal and infant mortality

Covid-19: Identifying and addressing vaccine hesitancy using ‘personas’

Does increasing female representation in school management improve school quality?

How RSBY impacted healthcare utilisation and spending

Covid-19 in India: Cases, deaths, and vaccinations

How cleaner cookstoves and fuels could benefit women’s health and the environment

Budget 2022-23: The elephants and the ostrich

Gender difference in mathematics learning in rural India

Economic development, the nutrition trap, and metabolic disease

Food insecurity and child malnutrition: New empirical evidence from India

Estimating changes in India’s workforce during 2011-2018

Urbanisation, gender, and social change: Do working women enjoy more agency?

Assessing the assessments: Taking stock of India’s ‘learning outcomes’ data

Incentivising quality of public infrastructure: Does it work?

Covid-19 and mobility: A behavioural perspective

Examining Covid-19 travel restrictions in developing countries

Timeliness and coverage of child vaccinations across India

Covid-19 and mental health: Focus on children’s holistic development

Covid-19 and mental health: Are children ready to go back to school?

Covid-19 and mental health: How have children been faring?

Covid-19 and mental health: Strengthening psychosocial well-being of children

Covid-19 and mental health: Fighting the “infodemic”, one phone call at a time

Covid-19 and mental health: Improving women’s mental well-being via telecounselling

Covid-19 and mental health: Large-scale phone survey in six Indian states

ग्रामीण भारत में युवाओं की डिजिटल तैयारी

स्वच्छ ईंधन में बदलाव हेतु महिलाओं के समय का मूल्य (महत्त्व) बढ़ाना

शिक्षा का मार्ग रोशन करना : क्या बिजली की सुविधा से बच्चों के परीक्षा स्कोर में वृद्धि हो सकती है?

किशोरों के मानसिक स्वास्थ्य पर शराब निषेध का अनपेक्षित प्रभाव

एएसईआर 2024: महामारी के बाद के सुधार से कहीं बेहतर