Child Health and Economic Crisis in Peru

The effect of macroeconomic crises on child health is a topicof great policy importance. This article analyzes the impactof a profound crisis in Peru on infant mortality. It finds anincrease of about 2.5 percentage points in the infant mortalityrate for children born during the crisis of the late 1980s,which implies that about 17,000 more children died than wouldhave in the absence of the crisis. Accounting for the precisesource of the increase in infant mortality is difficult, butit appears that the collapse in public and private expenditureson health played an important role.