The Impact of Improving Nutrition During Early Childhood on Education among Guatemalan Adults

John A. Maluccio, John Hoddinott (), Jere Richard Behrman, Reynaldo Martorell, Agnes Reynes Quisumbing () and Aryeh D. Stein

Economic Journal, 2009, vol. 119, issue 537, pages 734-763

Abstract: Using a longitudinal survey from rural Guatemala, we examine the effect of an early childhood nutritional intervention on adult educational outcomes. An intent-to-treat model yields substantial effects of an experimental intervention that provided highly nutritious food supplements to children, a quarter century after it ended: increases of 1.2 grades completed for women and one quarter SD on standardised reading comprehension and non-verbal cognitive ability tests for both women and men. Two-stage least squares results that endogenise the actual supplement intakes corroborate these magnitudes. Improving the nutrient intakes of very young children can have substantial, long-term, educational consequences. Copyright © The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2009.

Date: 2009

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