Todd Jessica E, Winters Paul
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Econ Dev Cult Change. 2011;59(3):549-81. doi: 10.1086/658347.
This article assesses whether early intervention to improve children's health and nutrition increases the probability of enrolling in primary school on time. Using experimental data from the Mexican conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, Oportunidades, a cross-sectional double-difference estimator on observations from two age cohorts of children is used to identify the impact of early intervention. The results indicate that early health and nutrition interventions can have a positive impact on the timing of enrollment and that caregiver characteristics affect the magnitude of the impact. Early intervention also appears to decrease days of school missed. Overall the results indicate that the full impact of CCT programs on education cannot be measured in the short run as benefits of early health and nutrition interventions may be also felt in the distant future.
本文评估了改善儿童健康与营养状况的早期干预措施是否会增加按时进入小学就读的可能性。利用墨西哥有条件现金转移支付（CCT）项目“机遇计划”的实验数据，对两个儿童年龄队列的观测值采用横截面双重差分估计量来确定早期干预的影响。结果表明，早期的健康与营养干预措施能够对入学时间产生积极影响，并且照料者特征会影响这种影响的程度。早期干预似乎还能减少缺课天数。总体而言，结果表明，由于早期健康与营养干预措施的益处可能在遥远的未来才会显现，因此短期内无法衡量CCT项目对教育的全面影响。
