title: Wealth gradients in early childhood cognitive development in five Latin American countries.
abstract: Research from the United States shows that gaps in early cognitive and non-cognitive ability appear early in the life cycle. Little is known about this important question for developing countries. This paper provides new evidence of sharp differences in cognitive development by socioeconomic status in early childhood for five Latin American countries. To help with comparability, we use the same measure of receptive language ability for all five countries. We find important differences in development in early childhood across countries, and steep socioeconomic gradients within every country. For the three countries where we can follow children over time, there are few substantive changes in scores once children enter school. Our results are robust to different ways of defining socioeconomic status, to different ways of standardizing outcomes, and to selective non-response on our measure of cognitive development.
authors.affiliation: Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, US, norberts@iadb.org.
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Schady
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, US, jbehrman@econ.upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Jere
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Behrman
authors.affiliation: Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, US, mcaraujo@iadb.org.
authors.forename: Maria Caridad
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Araujo
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, US, rodazuero@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Azuero
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, rbernal@uniandes.edu.co.
authors.forename: Raquel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bernal
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, microdatos@gmail.com.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bravo
authors.affiliation: Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, US, florencial@iadb.org.
authors.forename: Florencia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lopez-Boo
authors.affiliation: Paris School of Economics, Paris, France, karen.macours@parisschoolofeconomics.eu.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Macours
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, US, daniela.marshall@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Marshall
authors.affiliation: Brown University, Providence, RI, US, christina.paxson@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Paxson
authors.affiliation: World Bank Washington, DC, US, rvakis@worldbank.org.
authors.forename: Renos
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vakis