Tuesday, December 15, 2015 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205
Caroline Krafft, Assistant Professor, St. Catherine University, Department of Economics
Caroline Krafft is an assistant professor of economics at St. Catherine University. Her research focuses on human development in the Middle East and North Africa. She received her Ph.D. in applied economics from the University of Minnesota and her master’s degree in public policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
In Morocco, where issues of inequality and poverty are high on the national agenda, a community development program, the National Initiative for Human Development (INDH), targeted high-poverty areas for additional investments. This study examines whether, in addition to reducing poverty, such programs can also promote human development, specifically early childhood development (ECD). Using panel data on communities just above and below the cutoff for INDH inclusion in rural areas, we apply regression discontinuity and fixed effect models to identify the impact of the program on economic outcomes and ECD.