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Public childcare benefits children and mothers: Evidence from a nationwide experiment in a developing country

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  • Hojman, Andrés
  • Lopez Boo, Florencia

Abstract

This paper evaluates a public childcare program for children ages 0–4 in poor urban areas in Nicaragua. Our identification strategy exploits the program’s neighborhood-level randomization as exogenous variation to tackle imperfect compliance with the original treatment assignments. We find a positive impact of 0.38 standard deviations on socio-emotional skills and a 12-percentage-point increase on mothers’ work, which makes the program highly cost-effective. We do not find evidence of substantial heterogeneity of impacts across observed or unobserved household characteristics, and we present suggestive evidence of the importance of center quality for generating positive impacts.

Suggested Citation

  • Hojman, Andrés & Lopez Boo, Florencia, 2022. "Public childcare benefits children and mothers: Evidence from a nationwide experiment in a developing country," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:212:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722000883
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104686
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    3. Attanasio, Orazio P. & Lopez Boo, Florencia & Perez-Lopez, Diana & Reynolds, Sarah Anne, 2023. "Inequality in the Early Years in LAC: A Comparative Study of Size, Persistence, and Policies," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13316, Inter-American Development Bank.

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