Studies that measured skills similar to those in the EDI was used. These measures were collected by asking the child’s primary caregiver whether the child is usually able to demonstrate various skills. Specifically, we directly observed (or, with younger or reluctant children, asked the mother about) children’s gross and fine motor skills, language, cognitive and socio-emotional development. In one set of questions, children were asked to demonstrate their ability to perform a specified skill. When the child did not want to demonstrate this skill, the mother was asked if the child was usually able to do it. In another set of questions, the mother was asked directly whether their child could perform a particular activity. For these skills, the child was never asked to do a demonstration. In all cases, higher values indicate better developmental outcomes (Office of Population Studies, 2005). We standardized each of the variables to have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1, using the mean and standard deviation of the comparison group in the younger cohort.

Although all children in the sample are from poor, rural areas, we measured the relative wealth of children’s households. Households were asked if they owned any of the following items: radio, television, refrigerator, bicycle, motorcycle, car, mobile phone, and livestock. They were also asked about the materials used to construct the floor, walls and roof of their homes. Households were also asked if they had access to electricity in their homes and whether they received government assistance. Using principal components analysis on these items, we constructed a single index of household wealth. We standardized the variable to have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1, using the younger cohort’s mean and standard deviation.<sup>7</sup> As a measure of the child-parent relationship, we collected self-reports from the primary caregiver on how often they used various parenting practices related to their warmth, consistency, and hostility. The questionnaire was adapted from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (Zubrick et al. 2008). Higher total parenting scores correspond to higher levels of warmth and consistency, and lower levels of hostility. We standardized the variable to have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1, using the younger cohort’s mean and standard deviation.

# **4. Empirical Strategy**

To estimate the causal effect of the project on the younger cohort, we would ideally compare the change in outcomes between age 1 and age 5 (or between age 1 and age 8) for children in the treatment villages, relative to the change in outcomes for children in the comparison villages (i.e., a difference-in-differences approach). However, children in the younger cohort were too young to have baseline measures of enrollment in early childhood education as they were not yet age eligible. These children were also too young to have baseline measures of the EDI as they were not old enough for the instrument.

Instead, we evaluate the impact of the project using the following regression specification:

> 7 A comparison of assets ownership by households in the evaluation sample with that of the rural subsample of the SUSENAS (a nationally representative household survey) suggests average rates of asset ownership and education levels are by and large similar between the two. See also Hasan, Hyson and Chang (eds.) 2013.

7