Working Paper: NBER ID: w22640
Authors: Michael Levere; Gayatri Acharya; Prashant Bharadwaj
Abstract: 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.
Keywords: Child development; Cash transfers; Nutrition; Malnutrition; Randomized control trial
JEL Codes: I15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| maternal knowledge (J13) | caloric intake (D10) |
| maternal knowledge (J13) | breastfeeding practices (J13) |
| cash transfer (F16) | effectiveness of information (D83) |
| older siblings of treated children (J13) | improved anthropometric measures (O15) |
| information plus cash (F35) | maternal knowledge (J13) |
| information plus cash (F35) | child cognitive development (J13) |
| information only (Y50) | child cognitive development (J13) |
| information plus cash (F35) | anthropometric outcomes (O15) |