Quantifying the life-cycle benefits of a prototypical early childhood program

TitleQuantifying the life-cycle benefits of a prototypical early childhood program
Publication TypeReport
Year of Publication2017
AuthorsGarcia, JLuis, Heckman, JJ, Leaf, DErmini, Prados, MJosé
Series TitleNBER Working Paper Series
Document NumberWorking Paper No. 23479
Date Published06/2017
InstitutionNational Bureau of Economic Research
CityCambridge, MA
KeywordsChildhood adversity, Lifecycles
Abstract

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.

URLhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w23479.pdf
DOI10.3386/w23479
Citation Key9136