The Macroeconomic Consequences of Early Childhood Development Policies
82 Pages Posted: 12 Oct 2018 Last revised: 21 Feb 2019
Date Written: 2018-10-11
Abstract
To study long-run large-scale early childhood policies, this paper incorporates early childhood investments into a standard general-equilibrium (GE) heterogeneous-agent overlapping-generations model. After estimating it using US data, we show that an RCT evaluation of a short-run small-scale early childhood program in the model predicts effects on children's education and income that are similar to the empirical evidence. A long-run large-scale program, however, yields twice as large welfare gains, even after considering GE and taxation effects. Key to this difference is that investing in a child not only improves her skills but also creates a better parent for the next generation.
Keywords: Inequality, intergenerational mobility, early childhood development
JEL Classification: J13, J24, J62
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