Iron deficiency anemia is the most prevalent nutritional deficiency in the world, affecting more than 2 billion people in developing countries. We show that a modest cash transfer substantially reduced anemia among women of reproductive age in rural Ecuador.

Cash transfer programs have become extremely popular in the developing world. There is a large literature on the effects of these programs on schooling, health and nutrition, but relatively little is known about possible impacts on child development. This paper analyzes the impact of a cash...

We examine the relationship between early cognitive development, socio-economic status (SES), child health, and parenting in a developing country. Using a sample of over 3000 preschool age children from Ecuador, we analyze determinants of children’s scores on a widelyused test of language...

Abstract Research from the United States shows that gaps in early cognitive and non-cognitive ability appear early in the life cycle. Little is known about this important question for developing countries. This paper provides new evidence of sharp differences in cognitive development by...

There is considerable evidence that conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs can have large impacts on school enrollment, including in very poor countries. However, little is known about what features of program design account for the observed outcomes. In this paper we analyze the impact of a...

A large body of research indicates that child development is sensitive to early-life environments, so that poor children are at higher risk for poor cognitive and behavioral outcomes. These developmental outcomes are important determinants of success in adulthood. Yet, remarkably little is known...

We provide country-specific estimates of the effect of macroeconomic shocks on infant mortality for a sample of mainly middle-income countries. In most countries, infant mortality appears to be pro-cyclical or acyclical. Only when shocks to GDP are very deep, 15% or larger, are they consistently...

There is considerable evidence that young children in many developing countries suffer from profound deficits in nutrition, health, fine and gross motor skills, cognitive development, and socioemotional development. Early Childhood Development (ECD) outcomes are important markers of the welfare...

The impact of cash transfer programs on the accumulation of human capital is a topic of great policy importance. An attendant question is whether program effects are larger when transfers are"conditioned"on certain behaviors, such as a requirement that households enroll their children in school....

The effect of macroeconomic crises on child health is a topic of great policy importance. We use data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to analyze the impact of a profound crisis in Peru on infant mortality. We show that there was an increase in the infant mortality rate of about 2.5...