Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/193401 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12107
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
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.
Subjects: 
cognitive development
poverty
gradients
JEL: 
I24
I25
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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