Seminario CEDE - Camila Galindo

This paper estimates the medium- and long-term impacts of preschool expansion in Colombia and examines whether early education can amplify the effectiveness of a later nutritional intervention. Using administrative data and plausibly exogenous variation in preschool availability, we find that preschool exposure reduces dropout, increases primary and secondary completion, improves test scores on the high school exit exam, and raises higher education enrollment. We then study its interaction with the staggered rollout of a national school feeding program (PAE) beginning in 2012. Students exposed to both interventions, particularly when PAE began in earlier grades, show decreases in dropout and larger gains in secondary completion and test scores, consistent with dynamic complementarity. These results suggest that early education can enhance the productivity of later investments in human capital.