IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/23-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Universal Preschool Lottery Admissions and Its Effects on Long-Run Earnings and Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Randall Akee
  • Leah R. Clark

Abstract

We use an admissions lottery to estimate the effect of a universal (non-means tested) preschool program on students’ long-run earnings, income, marital status, fertility and geographic mobility. We observe long-run outcomes by linking both admitted and non-admitted individuals to confidential administrative data including tax records. Funding for this preschool program comes from an Indigenous organization, which grants Indigenous students admissions preference and free tuition. We find treated children have between 5 to 6 percent higher earnings as young adults. The results are strongest for individuals from the lower half of the household income distribution in childhood. Likely mechanisms include high-quality teachers and curriculum.

Suggested Citation

  • Randall Akee & Leah R. Clark, 2023. "Universal Preschool Lottery Admissions and Its Effects on Long-Run Earnings and Outcomes," Working Papers 23-09, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:23-09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2023/adrm/ces/CES-WP-23-09.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2023
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Heckman & Rodrigo Pinto & Peter Savelyev, 2013. "Understanding the Mechanisms through Which an Influential Early Childhood Program Boosted Adult Outcomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2052-2086, October.
    2. Elizabeth Cascio & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2013. "The Impacts of Expanding Access to High-Quality Preschool Education," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 44(2 (Fall)), pages 127-192.
    3. Maya Rossin-Slater & Miriam Wüst, 2020. "What Is the Added Value of Preschool for Poor Children? Long-Term and Intergenerational Impacts and Interactions with an Infant Health Intervention," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 255-286, July.
    4. Heckman, James J. & Moon, Seong Hyeok & Pinto, Rodrigo & Savelyev, Peter A. & Yavitz, Adam, 2010. "The rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 114-128, February.
    5. Elizabeth U. Cascio, 2023. "Does Universal Preschool Hit the Target?: Program Access and Preschool Impacts," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 1-42.
    6. Patrick Kline & Christopher R. Walters, 2016. "Evaluating Public Programs with Close Substitutes: The Case of HeadStart," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1795-1848.
    7. Seth Gershenson & Cassandra M. D. Hart & Joshua Hyman & Constance A. Lindsay & Nicholas W. Papageorge, 2022. "The Long-Run Impacts of Same-Race Teachers," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 300-342, November.
    8. Martha J. Bailey & Shuqiao Sun & Brenden Timpe, 2021. "Prep School for Poor Kids: The Long-Run Impacts of Head Start on Human Capital and Economic Self-Sufficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(12), pages 3963-4001, December.
    9. García, Jorge Luis & Heckman, James J. & Ronda, Victor, 2021. "The Lasting Effects of Early Childhood Education on Promoting the Skills and Social Mobility of Disadvantaged African Americans," IZA Discussion Papers 14575, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Nathaniel Hilger & Emmanuel Saez & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach & Danny Yagan, 2011. "How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project Star," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1593-1660.
    11. Yann Algan & Elizabeth Beasley & Sylvana Côté & Jungwee Park & Richard E. Tremblay & Frank Vitaro, 2022. "The Impact of Childhood Social Skills and Self-Control Training on Economic and Noneconomic Outcomes: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment Using Administrative Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(8), pages 2553-2579, August.
    12. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    13. Jens Ludwig & Douglas L. Miller, 2007. "Does Head Start Improve Children's Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 159-208.
    14. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    15. Andrew Barr & Chloe R. Gibbs, 2022. "Breaking the Cycle? Intergenerational Effects of an Antipoverty Program in Early Childhood," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(12), pages 3253-3285.
    16. Mary Layne & Deborah Wagner & Cynthia Rothhaas, 2014. "Estimating Record Linkage False Match Rate for the Person Identification Validation System," CARRA Working Papers 2014-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    17. Christina Weiland & Rebecca Unterman & Susan Dynarski & Rachel Abenavoli & Howard Bloom & Breno Braga & Ann-Marie Faria & Erica H. Greenberg & Brian Jacob & Jane Arnold Lincove & Karen Manship & Megha, 2023. "Lottery-Based Evaluations of Early Education Programs: Opportunities and Challenges for Building the Next Generation of Evidence," NBER Working Papers 30970, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Holla,Alaka & Bendini,Maria Magdalena & Dinarte Diaz,Lelys Ileana & Trako,Iva, 2021. "Is Investment in Preprimary Education Too Low ? Lessons from (Quasi) ExperimentalEvidence across Countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9723, The World Bank.
    2. Elizabeth U. Cascio, 2023. "Does Universal Preschool Hit the Target?: Program Access and Preschool Impacts," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 1-42.
    3. Akabayashi, Hideo & Ruberg, Tim & Shikishima, Chizuru & Yamashita, Jun, 2023. "Education-oriented and care-oriented preschools: Implications on child development," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Jens Dietrichson & Ida Lykke Kristiansen & Bjørn A. Viinholt, 2020. "Universal Preschool Programs And Long‐Term Child Outcomes: A Systematic Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(5), pages 1007-1043, December.
    5. Jorge Luis García & James J. Heckman, 2023. "Parenting Promotes Social Mobility Within and Across Generations," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 349-388, September.
    6. Frederik H. Bennhoff & Jorge Luis García & Duncan Ermini Leaf, 2024. "The Dynastic Benefits of Early-Childhood Education: Participant Benefits and Family Spillovers," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 44-73.
    7. van Huizen, Thomas & Plantenga, Janneke, 2018. "Do children benefit from universal early childhood education and care? A meta-analysis of evidence from natural experiments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 206-222.
    8. Patrick Kline & Christopher R. Walters, 2016. "Evaluating Public Programs with Close Substitutes: The Case of HeadStart," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1795-1848.
    9. Sneha Elango & Jorge Luis García & James J. Heckman & Andrés Hojman, 2015. "Early Childhood Education," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 2, pages 235-297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Morabito, Christian & Van de gaer, Dirk & Figueroa, José Luis & Vandenbroeck, Michel, 2018. "Effects of high versus low-quality preschool education: A longitudinal study in Mauritius," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 126-137.
    11. Jade Marcus Jenkins & Greg J. Duncan, 2023. "Skill Building in Early Care and Education Programs," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 706(1), pages 65-88, March.
    12. Elad DeMalach & Analia Schlosser, 2024. "Short- and Long-Term Effects of Universal Preschool: Evidence from the Arab Population in Israel," CESifo Working Paper Series 10904, CESifo.
    13. Yusuf Emre Akgündüz & Suzanne Heijnen, 2018. "Impact of Funding Targeted Pre-school Interventions on School Readiness: Evidence from the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(2), pages 155-178, June.
    14. Thomas Cornelissen & Christian Dustmann & Anna Raute & Uta Schönberg, 2018. "Who Benefits from Universal Child Care? Estimating Marginal Returns to Early Child Care Attendance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(6), pages 2356-2409.
    15. Yann Algan & Elizabeth Beasley & Sylvana Côté & Jungwee Park & Richard E. Tremblay & Frank Vitaro, 2022. "The Impact of Childhood Social Skills and Self-Control Training on Economic and Noneconomic Outcomes: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment Using Administrative Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(8), pages 2553-2579, August.
    16. Chen, Shuangye & Liu, Yanlin & Yang, Jin & Yang, Yuchen & Ye, Xiaoyang, 2023. "Impacts of village preschools on student enrollment and longer-term outcomes: New evidence from the poorest regions in China," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    17. Pierre Lefebvre & Claude Felteau, 2023. "Can universal preschool education intensities counterbalance parental socioeconomic gradients? Repeated international evidence from Fourth graders skills achievement," Working Papers 23-01, Research Group on Human Capital, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.
    18. 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).
    19. Rossin-Slater, Maya & Wüst, Miriam, 2016. "What is the Added Value of Preschool? Long-Term Impacts and Interactions with a Health Intervention," IZA Discussion Papers 10254, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Christopher R. Walters, 2015. "Inputs in the Production of Early Childhood Human Capital: Evidence from Head Start," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 76-102, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Children; Preschool; Returns to Education; Native Americans; Long-Run Outcomes; Income; Employment; Earnings; Wage Level;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cen:wpaper:23-09. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.html .

    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.