Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

During 2007 a nationwide program was implemented in Chile to promote early childhood development called “Chile Crece Contigo" (ChCC). The principal innovation that this program introduced was the implementation of a screening survey about the social and psychological environment of the mother in order to tailor support during the pregnancy. This paper exploits the gradual implementation of the program in different municipalities and its interaction with the gestation date of the child to estimate treatment parameters of the intervention. Using data from the first two rounds 2010/2012 of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ELPI) it is possible to evidence gains in some areas of cognitive development, and not on anthropometric measures like weight and height. Since the program has automatic enrollment and voluntary reception of services, the estimates presented can be interpreted as the Average Treatment Effect of the psychosocial evaluation implementation, and the Intention to Treat of actually receiving the services.