The invisible side of human development-non-cognitive skills and mental health

Mental health and non-cognitive skills are increasingly considered critical elements in fostering human capital development. In the last decade, more research has been done to understand the determinants of non-cognitive skill formation and mental health problems. The majority of this research focuses on developed countries (Heckman et al, 2013; Evans and Garthwaite, 2015; Kronenberg et al, 2017) and there are still crucial gaps in literature with respect to which interventions work, where and when. Hence, the aim of this research is to assess the effect of specific development interventions (in particular, Conditional Cash Transfer programmes) and of parental investments in the formation of non-cognitive skills in children, and in fostering mental wellbeing in mothers.
The theoretical framework that will guide the analysis is based on the human capital accumulation model proposed by Cunha et al (2010) and Attanasio (2015).
Building on this model, I will develop three studies. The first two will rely on a difference-indifferences (DD) identification strategy to estimate the impact of a Peruvian Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) on maternal mental health and children's non-cognitive skills. In the third study, I will analyse the role of parental investments on the formation of non-cognitive skills during different child developmental stages, accounting for the joint relation between cognitive and non-cognitive skills.