J. Bos, Akib Khan, Saravana Ravindran, A. Shonchoy
{"title":"Early Childhood Human Capital Formation at Scale","authors":"J. Bos, Akib Khan, Saravana Ravindran, A. Shonchoy","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3906697","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Can governments leverage existing service-delivery platforms to scale early childhood development (ECD) programs? We experimentally study a large-scale home-visiting intervention providing materials and counseling --- integrated into Bangladesh's national nutrition program without extra financial incentives for the service providers (SPs). We find SPs partially substituted away from nutritional to ECD counseling. Intent-to-treat estimates show the program improved child's cognitive (0.17 SD), language (0.23 SD), and socio-emotional developments (0.12-0.14 SD). Wasting and underweight rates also declined. Improved maternal agency, complementary parental investments, and higher take-up of the pre-existing nutrition program were important mechanisms. We estimate a sizeable internal rate-of-return of 19.6","PeriodicalId":210669,"journal":{"name":"Labor: Human Capital eJournal","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Labor: Human Capital eJournal","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3906697","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Can governments leverage existing service-delivery platforms to scale early childhood development (ECD) programs? We experimentally study a large-scale home-visiting intervention providing materials and counseling --- integrated into Bangladesh's national nutrition program without extra financial incentives for the service providers (SPs). We find SPs partially substituted away from nutritional to ECD counseling. Intent-to-treat estimates show the program improved child's cognitive (0.17 SD), language (0.23 SD), and socio-emotional developments (0.12-0.14 SD). Wasting and underweight rates also declined. Improved maternal agency, complementary parental investments, and higher take-up of the pre-existing nutrition program were important mechanisms. We estimate a sizeable internal rate-of-return of 19.6