http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/22395/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34753/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z The food crisis encountered in 2002 in Malawi was arguably one of the worst in the recent history of the country. The World Food Programme estimated that between 2.1 and 3.2 million people were threatened by starvation. Despite this assumed severity, not much research on the actual consequences of the crisis has been carried out so far. In order to fill this gap, this paper aims to identify the effects of the 2002 food crisis on the health status of the very young children exposed to it. Given the lack of longitudinal data and data collected during the crisis, assessing the potential impact of the 2002 events and the emergency aid that followed is challenging. We rely on representative data collected before and after the crisis and various methods from the impact evaluation literature to create a counterfactual in order to assess the implications of the crisis. Our analysis indicates that the net impact of the crisis was surprisingly low. Under-five excess mortality must have been below the 10,000 crisis-induced deaths suggested by some NGOs.Moreover, we also do not find any general and lasting loss in weight or height of children below the age of five. Nevertheless, if we disaggregate our sample population further by age and gender, we do find some nutritional impacts, both positive and negative. The positive effects identified seem to be the result of the combined influence of selective mortality and effective aid and policy interventions responding to the crisis. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18704/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z In 2002 Malawi experienced a serious shortage of cereals due to adverse climatic conditions. The World Food Programme assumed that about 2.1 to 3.2 million people were threatened of starvation at that time. However, not much research has been undertaken to investigate the actual consequences of this crisis. In particular, little is known about how the crisis affected the health status of children. Obviously, quantifying the health impact of such a crisis is a serious task given the lack of data and the more general problem of relating outcomes to specific shocks and policies. In this paper a difference-in-difference estimator is used to quantify the impact of the food crisis on the health status of children. The findings suggest that at least in the short run, there was neither a significant impact on child mortality nor on malnutrition. This would suggest that the shock might have been less severe than initially assumed and that the various policy interventions undertaken at the time have been effective or at least sufficient to counteract the immediate effects of the crisis.