Harold Alderman
Biographic Data
| ID | 324213 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Harold Alderman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Harold |
| FAMILY NAME | Alderman |
| SIGNATURE | ALDERMAN H |
| AFFILIATIONS | International Food Policy Research Institute |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8019-6397 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 75 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 266 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 75 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1971 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The effects of cash and group therapy in the context of conflict
The prevalence of depression remains high in low-income contexts, particularly those affected by conflict. This paper reports on a randomized controlled trial conducted in rural Ethiopia assessing the effects of a psychological (group therapy) intervention delivered by non-specialist health staff, as well as a large one-time cash transfer delivered post-therapy. The trial includes three arms comparing group therapy, cash, and both jointly to a st…
Assessing the overall benefits of programs enhancing human capital and equity
Assessing overall welfare from educational programs that affect multiple outcomes is challenging. • We propose a method to account for both productivity and distributional benefits. • We illustrate this approach by drawing on a large-scale RCT of school meals. • We show large welfare gains, mostly from future earnings but also from distributional benefits. • This method is applicable to programs that enhance human capital and equity. Poverty redu…
Can a light-touch graduation model enhance livelihood outcomes? Evidence from Ethiopia
Scalable Nutrition Interventions in a Graduation Model Program
We explore the effect of different models of scalable nutrition services embedded within a light-touch graduation program implemented at scale in Ethiopia. The graduation program provided poor households enrolled in Ethiopia’s national safety net, the Productive Safety Net Program, with additional livelihood programming including savings groups and agricultural and livestock value-chain training. In addition, extremely poor households received a …
Utilization of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and its linkages with undernutrition in India
The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme has been the central focus of the POSHAN Abhiyaan to combat maternal and child malnutrition under the national nutrition mission in India. This paper examined the linkages between utilization of ICDS and underweight among children aged 6-59 months. The study utilized data from two recent rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4 [2015-2016] and NFHS-5 [2019-2021]). Descriptive a…
The glass of milk half-empty? Dairy development and nutrition in low and middle income countries
Dairy products have an exceptionally rich nutrient profile and have long been promoted in high income countries to redress child malnutrition. But given all this potential, and the high burden of undernutrition in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), why isn't dairy consumption more actively promoted in the developing world? In this review we focus on a broadly defined concept of "dairy development" to include production, trade, marketing, r…
Estimating the cost and affordability of healthy diets
Recently developed cost and affordability of healthy diet (CoAHD) metrics have quickly become mainstream food security indicators. However, published research on the sensitivity of estimation methods is limited. This paper focuses on two important innovations in CoAHD measurement at the global level. First, we develop a demographic scaling factor to adjust healthy diet costs for cross-country differences in age structures, since younger populatio…
Men can cook
Effects of an integrated poultry value chain, nutrition, gender and Wash intervention (Selever) on hygiene and child morbidity and anthropometry in Burkina Faso
Nutrition-sensitive agriculture programmes have the potential to improve child nutrition outcomes, but livestock intensification may pose risks related to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) conditions. We assessed the impact of SELEVER, a nutrition- and gender-sensitive poultry intervention, with and without added WASH focus, on hygiene practices, morbidity and anthropometric indices of nutrition in children aged 2-4 years in Burkina Faso. A 3-…
Home environment and nutritional status mitigate the wealth gap in child development
Interventions focusing on improving quality of home environment, maternal education, wellbeing, and child nutrition status may help reduce developmental deficits associated with poverty
More evidence on cash transfers and child nutritional outcomes
Nutrition-sensitive agriculture programs increase dietary diversity in children under 5 years
BACKGROUND: Low-quality diets contribute to the burden of malnutrition and increase the risk of children not achieving their developmental potential. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture programs address the underlying determinants of malnutrition, though their contributions to improving diets do not factor into current nutrition impact modeling tools. OBJECTIVE: To synthesize the evidence on the effectiveness of nutrition-sensitive agriculture progra…
The role of poultry transfers in diet diversity
Poultry has gained renewed attention as a promising value chain for women because it is an asset that is widely accessible to women, has low start-up costs, and provides a good source of nutritious animal-sourced foods for children in chicken meat and, especially, eggs. The current study presents evidence from an experimental intervention that randomly provided women either a poultry package transfer of vaccinated, improved-breed chickens and rel…
Trends and geographic variability in gender inequalities in child mortality and stunting in India, 2006–2016
Gender disparities in child undernutrition and mortality in India have been a topic of interest for a long time, but little is known on trends or geographic variability in recent periods. We examined the degree to which historic patterns in gender disparities in child undernutrition and mortality in India have persisted given recent progress in health and nutrition. Using two nationally representative datasets from India between 2006 and 2016, we…
The effect of height on earnings
Is consanguinity an impediment to child development
Marriages between blood relatives-also known as consanguineous unions-are widespread in North Africa, Central and West Asia, and South Asia. Researchers have suggested that consanguinity has adverse effects on child development, but assessing its impact is not straightforward, as the decision to marry a relative might be endogenous to other socio-economic factors. Using a unique data set collected in rural Pakistan, this paper assesses the extent…
The Relative Caloric Prices of Healthy and Unhealthy Foods Differ Systematically across Income Levels and Continents
BACKGROUND: Relative prices of healthy/unhealthy foods have been implicated in the obesity epidemic, but never extensively quantified across countries or empirically linked to undernutrition. OBJECTIVES: This study compared relative caloric prices (RCPs) for different food categories across 176 countries and ascertained their associations with dietary indicators and nutrition outcomes. METHODS: We converted prices for 657 standardized food produc…
PHN List of Reviewers
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Aligning evidence generation and use across health, development, and environment
Although health, development, and environment challenges are interconnected, evidence remains fractured across sectors due to methodological and conceptual differences in research and practice. Aligned methods are needed to support Sustainable Development Goal advances and similar agendas. The Bridge Collaborative, an emergent research-practice collaboration, presents principles and recommendations that help harmonize methods for evidence generat…
Progress in reducing child mortality and stunting in India
The Lives Saved Tool (LiST) has been used to estimate the impact of scaling up intervention coverage on undernutrition and mortality. Evidence for the model is largely based on efficacy trials, raising concerns of applicability to large-scale contexts. We modelled the impact of scaling up health programs in India between 2006 and 2016 and compared estimates to observed changes. Demographics, intervention coverage and nutritional status were obtai…
Maternal depressive symptoms are negatively associated with child growth and development
Maternal depression has been suggested as a risk factor for both poor child growth and development in many low- and middle-income countries, but the validity of many studies is hindered by small sample sizes, varying cut-offs used in depression diagnostics, and incomplete control of confounding factors. This study examines the association between maternal depressive symptoms (MDSs) and child physical growth and cognitive development in Madhya Pra…
Prioritizing research for integrated implementation of early childhood development and maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition platforms
BACKGROUND: Existing health and nutrition services present potential platforms for scaling up delivery of early childhood development (ECD) interventions within sensitive windows across the life course, especially in the first 1000 days from conception to age 2 years. However, there is insufficient knowledge on how to optimize implementation for such strategies in an integrated manner. In light of this knowledge gap, we aimed to systematically id…
How Important is Parental Education for Child Nutrition
Existing evidence on the impacts of parental education on child nutrition is plagued by both internal and external validity concerns. In this paper we try to address these concerns through a novel econometric analysis of 376,992 preschool children from 56 developing countries. We compare a naïve least square model to specifications that include cluster fixed effects and cohort-based educational rankings to reduce biases from omitted variables bef…
Public and Private Returns to Investing in Nutrition
The authors examine the impact of nutrition on productivity at both the micro and macro levels and conclude that large economic returns to investing in nutrition. These can be measured at both the individual level as well as through economy-wide indicators such as aggregate incomes and gross domestic product. The evidence comes from a range of methodologies and disciplines, including the work of economic historians, cross-country models, microsim…
How Can Safety Nets Contribute to Economic Growth?
The paper provides an up-to date and selective review of the literature on how social safety nets contribute to growth. The evidence is carefully chosen to show how safety nets have the potential to overcome constraints on growth linked to market failures, and is organized into four distinct pathways: i) encouraging asset accumulation by changing incentives and by addressing imperfections in financial markets caused by constraints in obtaining cr…
Gender differentials in farm productivity
Attrition in Longitudinal Household Survey Data
Longitudinal household data can have considerable advantages over much more widely used cross-sectional data for capturing dynamic demographic relationships. Because the collection of longitudinal data may be difficult and expensive, analysts need to a
On the determinants of nutrition in Mozambique
The literature indicates mixed results regarding the impact of income and other variables on the age and gender standardized height-for-age of children. This paper uses data from Maputo, Mozambique to show that the impact of household resources or health inputs may be masked if diverse age groups are aggregated. For example, increases in household incomes affect only the nutritional status of children two years of age and older. Conversely, for y…
The effects of human capital on wages, and the determinants of labor supply in a developing country
With the help of one's neighbors
Child Malnutrition in Ethiopia
Saving and economic shocks in rural Pakistan
How Important is Parental Education for Child Nutrition
Existing evidence on the impacts of parental education on child nutrition is plagued by both internal and external validity concerns. In this paper we try to address these concerns through a novel econometric analysis of 376,992 preschool children from 56 developing countries. We compare a naïve least square model to specifications that include cluster fixed effects and cohort-based educational rankings to reduce biases from omitted variables bef…
Cost-effectiveness of the community-based management of severe acute malnutrition by community health workers in southern Bangladesh
This study assessed the cost-effectiveness of adding the community-based management of severe acute malnutrition (CMAM) to a community-based health and nutrition programme delivered by community health workers (CHWs) in southern Bangladesh. The cost-effectiveness of this model of treatment for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) was compared with the cost-effectiveness of the 'standard of care' for SAM (i.e. inpatient treatment), augmented with commu…
School feeding programs, intrahousehold allocation and the nutrition of siblings
Economic reform and food prices
The prevalence of calorie-deficient diets in developing countries
Almost random
Preschool Nutrition and Subsequent Schooling Attainment
This study analyzes how childhood health determines future academic performance in the Kagera region in Tanzania. Academic outcomes considered are years of education and delay in enrollment, and the measure of childhood health is height (relative to the median). The repercussions of malnutrition in childhood on subsequent learning and school performance are analyzed by using a unique longitudinal data set. Results indicate the degree to which mal…
Countercyclical safety nets for the poor and vulnerable
The Income Gap in Cognitive Skills in Rural Pakistan
The Effect of Food Subsidies on Labor Supply in Sri Lanka
Food Security and Health Security
Estimating the cost and affordability of healthy diets
Recently developed cost and affordability of healthy diet (CoAHD) metrics have quickly become mainstream food security indicators. However, published research on the sensitivity of estimation methods is limited. This paper focuses on two important innovations in CoAHD measurement at the global level. First, we develop a demographic scaling factor to adjust healthy diet costs for cross-country differences in age structures, since younger populatio…
The Impact of Food for Education Programs on School Participation in Northern Uganda
There is a general consensus that food for education (FFE) programs increase primary school participation. Although this view is widely held, there is limited causal evidence to support it. Moreover, little is known about how the design of FFE programs affects schooling outcomes. This article presents evidence of the impacts of alternative methods of FFE delivery on schooling in Northern Uganda using a randomized controlled evaluation conducted f…
The twilight of flour rationing in Pakistan
Men can cook
Changes in Consumption and Saving Behavior before and after Economic Shocks
This study examines the effects of drought and macroeconomic changes on household consumption and savings behavior in Zimbabwe, using two nationally representative cross_sectional data sets that straddle a period of economic volatility. Specifically, the article (1) analyzes changes in consumption and saving behavior before and after economic shocks and (2) investigates the effectiveness of savings as a means of cushioning the impacts of covariat…
Food subsidies and exchange rate distortions in Mozambique
Allocation of goods through non-price mechanisms
Heidegger on the Nature of Metaphysics
Dialectic as philosophical care
The place of comedy
The prevalence of calorie-deficient diets in developing countries
Attributing technological bias to public goods
Egypt's food subsidy policy
Allocation of goods through non-price mechanisms
The twilight of flour rationing in Pakistan
The effects of human capital on wages, and the determinants of labor supply in a developing country
Workshop on impact of changes in income on nutrient consumption, International food policy research Institute, Washington, DC, USA, 19 December 1988
Food subsidies and exchange rate distortions in Mozambique
Food Security and Health Security
Unitary Versus Collective Models of the Household
Most development objectives focus on the well-being of individuals. Policies are targeted to increase the percentage of individuals who avoid poverty, who can read, who are free from hunger and illness, or who can find gainful employment. Individual welfare, however, is based in large part on a complex set of interactions among family members. Until recently most policy analyses implicitly viewed the household as having only one set of preference…
Gender differentials in farm productivity
Economic reform and food prices
Saving and economic shocks in rural Pakistan
The Effect of Food Subsidies on Labor Supply in Sri Lanka
On the determinants of nutrition in Mozambique
The literature indicates mixed results regarding the impact of income and other variables on the age and gender standardized height-for-age of children. This paper uses data from Maputo, Mozambique to show that the impact of household resources or health inputs may be masked if diverse age groups are aggregated. For example, increases in household incomes affect only the nutritional status of children two years of age and older. Conversely, for y…
The Income Gap in Cognitive Skills in Rural Pakistan
Social Assistance in Albania
Albania provides a small amount of social assistance to nearly 20 % of its population through a system that allows a degree of community discretion in determining distribution. This study investigates the poverty targeting of this program. It indicates that relative to other safety net programs in low income countries, social assistance in Albania is fairly well targeted to the poor. Moreover, the poverty targeting exceeds that which could be exp…
Attrition in Longitudinal Household Survey Data
Longitudinal household data can have considerable advantages over much more widely used cross-sectional data. The collection of longitudinal data, however, may be difficult and expensive. One problem that has concerned many analysts is that sample attrition may make the interpretation of estimates problematic. Such attrition may be particularly severe in areas where there is considerable mobility because of migration between rural and urban areas…
Child Health and School Enrollment
Better child health is widely thought to improve school performance, and therefore post-school productivity. But most of the literature ignores that child health as well as child schooling reflects behavioral choices. Therefore the estimated impact of child health on child schooling in these studies may be biased, perhaps substantially. This study employs longitudinal data to investigate the impact of child health (as indicated by nutritional sta…
School Quality, School Cost, and the Public/Private School Choices of Low-Income Households in Pakistan
Harold Alderman, Peter F. Orazem, Elizabeth M. Paterno, School Quality, School Cost, and the Public/Private School Choices of Low-Income Households in Pakistan, The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Spring, 2001), pp. 304-326
Attrition in Longitudinal Household Survey Data
Longitudinal household data can have considerable advantages over much more widely used cross-sectional data for capturing dynamic demographic relationships. Because the collection of longitudinal data may be difficult and expensive, analysts need to a
Do local officials know something we don’t? Decentralization of targeted transfers in Albania
Economics (44 works) · Medicine (38 works) · Child Nutrition and Water Access (37 works) · Economic growth (32 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (31 works) · Environmental health (30 works) · Business (20 works) · Psychology (20 works) · Geography (19 works) · Malnutrition (19 works)