Professor: Financial stress impacts birth weight negatively

Professor: Financial stress impacts birth weight negatively

In a recent study “Household Financial Distress and Initial Endowments: Evidence From the 2008 Financial Crisis” Assistant Professor Arna Vardardottir at the CBS Department of Economics concludes that financial crises have a negative impact on birth weight at the level of smoking and drinking. In short: financial crises are bad for our newborns. She draws her conclusions based on data from Iceland’s National Birth Register from when the bank collapse shock hit Iceland in October 2008. This groundbreaking new evidence was presented hot off the press at the European Economic Association annual conference in Mannheim on 25 August.   

The issue is being further discussed in this Financial Times blog for which Arna was interviewed: http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2015/08/24/icelandic-babies-hidden-victims-of-the-banking-crash/

Read the paper here: http://vardardottir.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/7/5/23754531/financial_distress_july2015.pdf