Child Health and Economic Crisis in Peru

The effect of macroeconomic crises on child health is a topic of great policy importance. We use data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to analyze the impact of a profound crisis in Peru on infant mortality. We show that there was an increase in the infant mortality rate of about 2.5 percentage points for children born during the crisis, implying that about 17,000 more children died than would have in the absence of the crisis. Accounting for the precise source of the increase in infant mortality is difficult, but it appears that the collapse in public and private expenditures on health played an important role.