改善学前教育供给并鼓励需求：来自一项大规模建设计划的证据

中文摘要

我们研究柬埔寨一项学前教育建设计划及两项需求侧干预的影响。在当地已有其他学前教育机构可供选择的背景下，该计划对原本会进入既有学前教育机构的儿童和原本会留在家中的儿童可能产生不同影响，预计后者获益更大。一年后，我们测得该计划对一项综合发展指标具有正向的意向处理效应，并表明其对原本会留在家中的儿童的效应可被界定在0.14–0.49个标准差之间。在更强的假设下，我们将这一效应精确测定为0.21个标准差，而对原本会进入其他学前教育机构的儿童的效应接近于零。这些结果与学前教育质量的测度结果一致，后者表明新建学校仅显著改善了基础设施，但并未改善教育过程的质量。两年后，大多数影响不再显著，表明学前教育带来的优势迅速消失，尤其是在儿童进入小学之后。

Abstract

We study the impact of a preschool construction program and of two demand-side interventions in Cambodia. Within this context where other preschools are available, impacts are likely to differ between children who would have been enrolled in a preexisting preschool and those who would have stayed at home, with larger expected gains for the latter. After one year, we measure positive intent-to-treat impacts on an aggregate measure of development and show that the effect on children who would have stayed at home can be bounded (0.14-0.49 SD). Under heavier assumptions, we pinpoint this effect at 0.21 SD, while the effect on children who would have enrolled in another preschool is close to zero. These results are consistent with measures of preschool quality which imply that the newly constructed schools only significantly improved infrastructure, but did not improve the quality of educational processes. After two years, most impacts become insignificant suggesting that the advantage provided by preschool quickly vanished, specifically once children enrolled in primary school.