Are Estimates of Early Education Programs Too Pessimistic? Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment that Causally Measures Neighbor Effects

55 Pages Posted: 31 May 2019

See all articles by John A. List

John A. List

University of Chicago - Department of Economics

Fatemeh Momeni

University of Chicago

Yves Zenou

Monash University - Department of Economics; Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IUI); IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Stockholm University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: May 8, 2019

Abstract

We estimate the direct and spillover effects of a large-scale early childhood intervention on the educational attainment of over 2,000 disadvantaged children in the United States. We show that failing to account for spillover effects results in a severe underestimation of the impact. The intervention induced positive direct effects on test scores of children assigned to the treatment groups. We document large spillover effects on both treatment and control children who live near treated children. On average, spillover effects increase a child's non-cognitive (cognitive) scores by about 1.2 (0.6 to 0.7) standard deviations. The spillover effects are localized, decreasing with the spatial distance to treated neighbors. Our evidence suggests the spillover effect on non-cognitive scores are likely to operate through the child's social network. Alternatively, parental investment is an important channel through which cognitive spillover effects operate. We view our results as speaking to several literatures, perhaps most importantly the role of public programs and neighborhoods on human capital formation at an early age.

Keywords: education, neighborhood, field experiment, spillover effects, non-cognitive skills

JEL Classification: C93, I21, R1

Suggested Citation

List, John A. and Momeni, Fatemeh and Zenou, Yves, Are Estimates of Early Education Programs Too Pessimistic? Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment that Causally Measures Neighbor Effects (May 8, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3385107 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3385107

John A. List

University of Chicago - Department of Economics ( email )

1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Fatemeh Momeni

University of Chicago ( email )

1101 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Yves Zenou (Contact Author)

Monash University - Department of Economics ( email )

Australia

Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IUI) ( email )

P.O. Box 5501
S-114 85 Stockholm
Sweden

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

Stockholm University ( email )

Universitetsvägen 10
Stockholm, Stockholm SE-106 91
Sweden

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
265
Abstract Views
1,807
Rank
243,013
PlumX Metrics