However, no previous study has investigated the impact of remittances and migration on anthropometric indicators for young children (weight-for-age, height-for age), which are considered to be important measures of the health dimension of human capital accumulation and are extensively cited in the literature of health economics. For instance, Hoddinot and Kinsey (2001) present results on how external shocks drastically affect child growth in developing countries. It is a consensus in medicine that both weight and height measures are good indicators of health status, with different consequences in the short and long run. For instance, lower weight is usually associated with malnutrition and higher mortality risk. Similarly, lower stature in childhood is strongly correlated with lower body size in adulthood, with negative consequences on earnings and productivity (Thomas and Strauss, 1997), and increased risk of cardiovascular and lung diseases.

With this motivation, this section assesses the effect of international migrant remittances on anthropometric health indicators typically used in the health literature, and with well known links with child growth. We also estimate the impact of remittances on others health measures as those addressed in Hildebrandt and McKenzie (2006), such as the probability that the delivery of children born in the year preceding the survey was assisted by a doctor, and on the probability that children aged 2 to 5 received the complete set of required vaccinations. The anthropometric measures on which we focus are the Weight-for-Age (WAZ) and Height-for-Age (HAZ) Z- Scores for children aged 1 to 5 years old. These are standardized measures of performance in weight and height, and consist on comparing each child of a given age to a reference group. The reference tables for WAZ and HAZ are taken from the CDC Growth Charts for US (Kuczmarski et al., 2000).<sup>10</sup> In particular, the following formula is used for calculating the Z-Scores: where _X_ is the measure of interest (weight, height) for the child, _M_ is the median of the corresponding variable, _S_ is the generalized coefficient of variation, and _L_ is the power in the Box-Cox transformation taken from the CDC reference tables for a given age group. In order to avoid extreme values and outliers due to misreporting, we follow Hoddinott and Kinsey’s (2001) recommendation to drop children with z-scores greater than 6 or lower than -6. As the original reference tables account for children with 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, etc. months, in order to match our data the reference months are rounded up (i.e., 1.5 month in the reference table are equal to 2 months).<sup>11</sup> Figures 6 and 7 show the distribution of weight-for-age and height-for-age anthropometric z-scores for the cases of Guatemala and Nicaragua, the only two LAC countries for which the available household surveys provide the information needed for calculating the

> 10 Reference Tables can be found at www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/nhanes/growthcharts/datafiles.htm

> 11 For WAZ, the original tables used are the "Weight-for-age charts, birth to 36 months", for children from 0 up to 36 months. For older children, values where extrapolated using the "Weight-for-age charts, 2 to 20 years". Similarly, for HAZ the reference tables used are "Length-for-age charts, birth to 36 months", for children from 0 up to 36 months, and "Stature-for-age charts, 2 to 20 years", for older children.

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