Evaluates early childhood education impacts on child development in Panama, suggesting benefits in language skills.
We evaluate a center-based public early childhood education (ECE) program in Panama. Utilizing the randomized allocation of slots for children living in the neighborhoods of 16 centers, we measure the impacts of ECE on child development, hours of care, family labor supply and earnings, home environment, and expenditures on children’s items. We find an increase in center-based care that substitutes informal care. Children exposed to ECE experience a substantive improvement in language development. However, we do not find impacts on outcomes related to family labor supply and earnings, parental time use, or parental investments.
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Eyzaguirre et al. (2026) studied this question.
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