IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/jhriss/v58y2023i1p43-73.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fighting Crime in the Cradle: The Effects of Early Childhood Access to Nutritional Assistance

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Barr
  • Alexander A. Smith

Abstract

Using variation in the rollout of the Food Stamp Program (FSP), combined with criminal conviction data from North Carolina, we find that FSP availability in early childhood leads to large reductions in later criminal behavior Each additional year of FSP availability in early childhood reduces the likelihood of a criminal conviction in young adulthood by 2.5 percent, with stronger effects for violent and felony convictions. These effects are substantially larger for nonwhites, consistent with their higher levels of FSP participation. The discounted social benefits from the FSP’s later crime reduction exceed the costs of the program over this time period.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Barr & Alexander A. Smith, 2023. "Fighting Crime in the Cradle: The Effects of Early Childhood Access to Nutritional Assistance," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 43-73.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:58:y:2023:i:1:p:43-73
    Note: DOI: 10.3368/jhr.58.3.0619-10276R2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jhr.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/58/1/43
    Download Restriction: A subscripton is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Torben S. D. Johansen, 2024. "Optimal Treatment Allocation under Constraints," Papers 2404.18268, arXiv.org.
    2. Hema Shah & Lisa A. Gennetian, 2024. "Unconditional cash transfers for families with children in the U.S.: a scoping review," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 415-450, June.
    3. Baker, Jennifer L. & Bjerregaard, Lise G. & Dahl, Christian M. & Johansen, Torben S. D. & Sørensen, Emil N. & Wüst, Miriam, 2023. "Universal Investments in Toddler Health. Learning from a Large Government Trial," IZA Discussion Papers 16270, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Barna Konkolÿ Thege & Eden Kinzel & Jamie Hartmann‐Boyce & Olivia Choy, 2024. "PROTOCOL: The efficacy of nutritional interventions in reducing childhood/youth aggressive and antisocial behavior: A systematic review and meta‐analysis," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(2), June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:58:y:2023:i:1:p:43-73. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://jhr.uwpress.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.