The early development of non-cognitive skills has longlasting benefits for children's sub- sequent educational attainment and wages. Drawing on a rich, nationally representative longitudinal sample of young children in Ireland, we present new evidence on whether the use of centre-based childcare...

We present findings from an integrated early childhood parenting program on stunting and wasting in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Importantly, where half the communities were randomly assigned to receive the parenting program and the remaining half served as a control that received standard...

The critical role of prenatal and early childhood conditions on adult outcomes has been the focus of a rich body of research. In this paper, we examine various pre- and postnatal investments as possible sources behind the "birth order effect" – significant differences in the educational and...

Using every major nationally-representative dataset on parental and non-parental care provided to children up to age 6, we quantify differences in American children's care experiences by socioeconomic status (SES), proxied primarily with maternal education. Increasingly, higher-SES children...

Despite substantial interest in preschool as a means of narrowing the achievement gap, little is known about how particular program attributes might influence the achievement gains of disadvantaged preschoolers. This paper uses survey data on a recent cohort to explore the mediating influence of...

This paper distills and extends recent research on the economics of human development and social mobility. It summarizes the evidence from diverse literatures on the importance of early life conditions in shaping multiple life skills and the evidence on critical and sensitive investment periods...

In this paper, we examine the heterogeneous treatment effects of a universal child care (preschool) program in Germany by exploiting the exogenous variation in attendance caused by a reform that led to a large staggered expansion across municipalities. Drawing on novel administrative data from...

Advocates of a universal child care system offer a two-fold argument: Child care facilitates children's long-run development, and levels the playing field by benefiting in particular disadvantaged children. Therefore, a critical element in evaluating universal child care systems is to measure...

There is a heated debate in the US, Canada and many European countries about introducing universally accessible child care. However, studies on universal child care and child development are scarce and only consider short-run outcomes. We analyze the introduction of universal child care in...

What happens to children's long-run cognitive development when introducing universal high-quality childcare for 3-year olds mainly crowds out maternal care? To answer this question we exploit a natural experiment framework and employ a difference-in-difference approach. We find sizable...