The Role of Information and Cash Transfers on Early Childhood Development: Evidence from Nepal / Michael Levere, Gayatri Acharya, Prashant Bharadwaj.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Levere, Michael.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Acharya, Gayatri.

Bharadwaj, Prashant.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22640.

NBER working paper series no. w22640

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

While substantial progress has been made in combating malnutrition at a global level, chronic maternal and child malnutrition remains a serious problem in many parts of the developing world. In this paper, using a randomized control trial design in Nepal, we evaluate a program that provided information on best practices regarding child care and cash to families in extremely poor areas with pregnant mothers and/or children below the age of 2. We find significant and sizable impacts of the information plus cash intervention on maternal knowledge, behavior, child development, and nutrition. The size of these impacts along some measures of knowledge and development are significantly different from the information only intervention group suggesting a potential role for providing a short term cash safety net along with information to tackle the problem of malnutrition.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2016.