Quantifying the Life-Cycle Benefits of a Prototypical Early Childhood Program

Arbeitspapier

This paper quantifies the experimentally evaluated life-cycle benefits of a widely implemented early childhood program targeting disadvantaged families. We join experimental data with non-experimental data using economic models to forecast its life-cycle benefits. Our baseline estimate of the internal rate of return (benefit/cost ratio) is 13.7% (7.3). We conduct extensive sensitivity analyses to account for model estimation error, forecasting error, and judgments made about the empirical magnitudes of non-market benefits. We examine the performance of widely used, ad hoc estimates of long-term benefit/cost ratios based on short-term measures of childhood test scores and find them wanting.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 10811

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth ; Education: Government Policy ; Field Experiments
• Subject: long-term forecasts ; life-cycle benefits ; early childhood education ; childcare ; rates of return

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): García, Jorge Luis ; Heckman, James J. ; Leaf, Duncan Ermini ; Prados, Maria José
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2017

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/170795
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET