A Short-Term Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation of Better-Quality Daycare Centers

Abstract

Studies of the effects of pre-school programs on child development in developing countries have found scant impact. This study was conducted to reconcile the importance of daycare for child development with the empirical estimates of small effects. Using a random sample of 500 children from 100 daycare centers in the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, the study combined a a flexible function relating child development to daycare center quality with a hedonic cost function, enabling an evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of better-quality daycare centers. Among the study.s findings are that the developmental age of children attending high-quality services is greater than that of children attending low-quality centers, that quality improvement can be measured in a number of ways, not all of which have the same cost implications or impact on child development.