Long-Run Effects of Universal Pre-Primary Education Expansion: Evidence from Argentina

Samuel Berlinski, Guillermo Cruces, Sebastian Galiani, Paul Gertler and Fabian Gonzalez

No 21782, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We study the long-run effects of a large public expansion of pre-primary education in Argentina. Between 1993 and 1999, the federal government financed the construction of new preschool classrooms targeted to departments with low baseline enrollment and high poverty, creating roughly 186,000 additional places. We link administrative records on classroom construction to four population censuses and estimate difference-in-differences models that compare treated and untreated cohorts across high- and low-construction departments. An additional preschool seat per child increases post-kindergarten schooling by about 0.5 years, raising the probability of completing secondary school by 11.9 percentage points and of attaining any post-secondary education by 7.1 percentage points. For women, access to the program also reduces fertility: an additional seat lowers the number of live births per woman by 0.20. Across several checks using cohort sizes, household composition, province-of-birth restrictions, and direct migration measures, we find little evidence consistent with systematic selective migration, suggesting that migration is unlikely to be a major source of bias in our estimates. Our results show little impact on labor-market outcomes at the census date, consistent with beneficiaries still being in school or in the early stages of their careers. A benefit-cost analysis based on the estimated schooling gains, standard Mincer returns, and observed construction and operating costs yields a benefit-cost ratio of about 11 and an internal rate of return of 13\%. Our findings show that universal at-scale pre-primary expansions in middle-income countries can generate sizable improvements in human capital and demographic outcomes at relatively low fiscal cost.

JEL-codes: J13 J16 J38 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07
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