This thesis contains three essays on culture and early childhood. The first essay studies the effect of ethnic beliefs/preferences on breastfeeding practices in Peru and Bolivia. Comparing the breastfeeding practices of rural-to-urban migrants and their descendants by ethnicity, we find that Aymara indigenous mothers breastfeed longer than non-indigenous ones. The second and third essays study the effectiveness of Chile crece Contigo - ChCC hereinafter -, a national-scale early childhood development policy implemented in Chile. This policy follows all children in the public health system from gestation until they are four years old. It has a strong prenatal component, and focuses on the early detection and amelioration of bio-psycho-social vulnerabilities in the family environment. Consistent with the policy objectives, we show that ChCC increases socio-emotional skills of children between 18 and 47 months of old, and it is more effective when the child is exposed to the policy since gestation. Furthermore, we estimate a production function of skills for cohorts exposed to ChCC before and after its expansion, and find that the increased abilities are not only associated with higher levels of parental investment but also with an increase in the average marginal product of this variable a. a From the unpublished manuscript (1), written with Marina Aguiar Palma.