Dec

4

2007

12:00—1:30 PM
Center for Global Development, 1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC
,
RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES (RSS)

The Impact of Early Childhood Nutrition on Education: Evidence from a Randomized, Three-decade Longitudinal Study in Guatemala

Center for Global Development and The Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies present 
MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE DEVELOPMENT SEMINAR (MADS)* 

featuring 
John Hoddinott 
Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute 

with discussant 
Hugo Ñopo 
Research Economist, Inter-American Development Bank 

Tuesday, December 4, 2007 
12:00 noon--1:30 p.m. 
Lunch will be served 

at
Center for Global Development 
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC 

REGISTER ONLINE 

ABSTRACT: Early childhood nutrition is thought to have important effects on education, broadly defined to include various forms of learning. We advance beyond previous literature on the effect of early childhood nutrition on education in developing countries by using unique longitudinal data begun during a nutritional experiment during early childhood with educational outcomes measured in adulthood. Estimating an intent-to-treat model capturing the effect of exposure to the intervention from birth to 36 months, our results indicate significantly positive, and fairly substantial, effects of the randomized nutrition intervention a quarter century after it ended: increased grade attainment by women (1.2 grades) via increased likelihood of completing primary school and some secondary school; speedier grade progression by women; a one-quarter SD increase in a test of reading comprehension with positive effects found for both women and men; and a one-quarter SD increase on nonverbal cognitive tests scores. There is little evidence of heterogeneous impacts with the exception being that exposure to the intervention had a larger effect on grade attainment and reading comprehension scores for females in wealthier households. The findings are robust to an array of alternative estimators of the standard errors and controls for sample attrition. 

*The Massachusetts Avenue Development Seminar (MADS) series is an effort by the Center for Global Development and The Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies to take advantage of the incredible concentration of great international development scholars in the Metro Washington, DC area. The series seeks to bring together members of this community and improve communication between them.

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