Household responses to information on child nutrition:experimental evidence from Malawi

Incorrect knowledge of the health production function may lead to inefficient household choices, and
thereby to the production of suboptimal levels of health. This paper studies the effects of a
randomised intervention in rural Malawi which, over a six-month period, provided mothers of young
infants with information on child nutrition without supplying any monetary or in-kind resources. A
simple model first investigates theoretically how nutrition and other household choices including
labour supply may change in response to the improved health knowledge observed in the intervention
areas. We then show empirically that, in line with this model, the intervention improved household
consumption, child nutrition and consequently health. These increases are funded by an increase in
the labour supply of fathers. We consider and rule out alternative explanations behind these findings.
This paper is the first to establish that non-health choices, particularly parental labour supply, are
affected by parents‟ knowledge of the child health production function.