Early Childhood Human Capital Formation at Scale

Abstract

Can governments leverage existing service-delivery platforms to scale early childhood development (ECD) intervention? We experimentally study a large-scale, light-touch home-visiting intervention --- providing materials and counseling --- integrated into Bangladesh's national nutrition program without extra financial incentives for service providers (SPs). We find SPs partially substitute away from nutritional to ECD counseling. Intent-to-treat estimates show positive impacts on child's cognition (0.17 SD), language (0.23 SD), and socio-emotional scores (0.12-0.14 SD). Wasting and underweight rates also decline. Improved maternal agency, complementary parental investments, and higher take-up of the pre-existing nutrition program are important mechanisms. We estimate a sizeable internal rate-of-return of 18.9%.

Keywords: Early childhood development, Human capital formation, Bangladesh

JEL Classification: J13, J24, I25, H11