Stephanie von Hinke, University of Bristol
Early life nutrition and long-term human capital
Abstract
The early life food environment is crucial in shaping individuals' preferences, health and human capital accumulation. In this paper, we investigate the impact of specific changes in prenatal exposure to nutrition, caused by a moderate regulatory change, on offspring human capital accumulation and cognitive ability in later life. This positive nutrition shock originates from changes in the nutritional composition of bread, which accounted for around a third of daily calories during our observation window. More specifically, we exploit variation in the flour extraction rate, set by the wartime and post-war UK government, leading to the exclusive supply of a darker, more nutritious bread. We find that in utero exposure to higher extraction rates improves fluid intelligence in older age, with additional (but more suggestive) evidence of an increase in years of education. We also find that exposed individuals exhibit a higher preference for wholemeal foods in later life. Our results suggest that even moderate improvements in early life nutrition contribute to human capital accumulation and may shape preferences for foods and nutrients throughout the life course.
Stephanie von Hinke is a Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol. Her research builds on the biomedical as well as social sciences. I investigate the importance of genetics, early life environments, parental investments, and government policy in explaining individuals’ health and well-being over the life course.
She is the PI on a 5-year European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (2020-2025) that aims to incorporate genetic data into social science research and study the importance of the nature-nurture interplay in the developmental origins of health and disease. She is also co-PI (with Titus Galama) a 4-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MCSA)/UKRI Doctoral Network (2023-2027) to train a cohort of PhD students in social science genetics.
You can read more about Stephanie von Hinke and her research here
CEBI contact: Miriam Wüst