The article assesses the impact of Chile’s early childhood policy, Chile Crece Contigo (ChCC), using data from Chile’s Longitudinal Early Childhood Survey (ELPI).
We estimate a CES production function of skills of children exposed to ChCC since gestation and compare it to those exposed to the policy only at later developmental stages. The results show that ChCC is associated with higher socio-emotional abilities and cognition as well as higher levels of parental investments.
Differences in production function parameters between pre-ChCC and post-ChCC cohorts, including the productivity of parental investments, explain between 66% to 95% of total effects. In addition, we find evidence that ChCC effects were concentrated on vulnerable families.