2019/08/02 by Jorge Luis García, James J. Heckman, Duncan Ermini Leaf +1 · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics #Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare #Early Childhood Education and Development
paper · doi:10.1086/705718
openalex created_date 2019/03/11 · openalex publication_date 2019/08/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
This paper quantifies and aggregates the multiple lifetime benefits of an influential high-quality early childhood program with outcomes measured through midlife. Guided by economic theory, we supplement experimental data with non-experimental data to forecast the life-cycle benefits and costs of the program. Our point estimate of the internal rate of return is 13.7% with an associated benefit/cost ratio of 7.3. We account for model estimation and forecasting error and present estimates from extensive sensitivity analyses. This paper is a template for synthesizing experimental and non-experimental data using economic theory to estimate the long-run life-cycle benefits of social programs.