Exploiting Externalities to Estimate the Long-Term Effects of Early Childhood Deworming.” Working paper

Abstract

Abstract I investigate whether a large-scale deworming intervention aimed at primary school pupils in western Kenya had long-term effects on young children in the region, exploiting positive externalities from the program to estimate the impact on younger children who did not receive treatment directly. I find large cognitive effects-equivalent to half a year of schooling-for children who were less than one year old when their communities received mass deworming treatment. I also find modest positive effects on stature. Because mass deworming was administered through schools, I also estimate effects among children who were likely to have older siblings in school to receive the treatment directly; in this subpopulation, effects are twice as large