1.1. Why might growth in the overall economy not have led to more improvement in the stunting rate? The first of the Millennium Development Goals is to substantially cut the number of households who experience extreme hunger. One of four children younger than 5 years of age in the world are characterized as stunted, extremely short because of malnutrition. Of these children, one half are in Asia and one third in Africa. For these children poor nutrition in the early years leaves a permanent mark, reflected in life span and earnings.

Recent work in economics has focused on the case of stunting in India. India’s stunting rate is among the highest in the world, exceeding even that of the much poorer African nations. Moreover, despite rapid growth in the last decade, little progress has been made in reducing the stunting rate.

Seema Jayanchandran from Northwestern and Rohini Pande of Harvard’s Kennedy School examined several large data sets to try to understand why