IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpb/discus/328.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Impact of funding targeted pre-school interventions on school readiness: Evidence from the Netherlands

Author

Listed:
  • Emre Akgunduz
  • Suzanne Heijnen

Abstract

We analyze the effectiveness of the early childhood programme (ECP) in the Netherlands. The programme is designed for 2.5 to 4 year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds. 37 municipalities received an additional subsidy to expand ECP programmes, which allows us to analyze the effects of the programme within a difference-in-difference-in-differences framework. Most children first enroll in primary schools at age 4 in the Netherlands, but pupils begin to learn reading and mathematics in grade 3 at age 6. We use grade repetition constructed from school registry data from 2008 to 2015 in the first two grades as an indicator of school readiness. Our results show significantly lower grade repetition rates for targeted boys who are in regions that receive the subsidy. Grade repetition drops by 1 to 3 percentage points from a mean of 10.5 percent for the disadvantaged group targeted by the programme.

Suggested Citation

  • Emre Akgunduz & Suzanne Heijnen, 2016. "Impact of funding targeted pre-school interventions on school readiness: Evidence from the Netherlands," CPB Discussion Paper 328, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpb:discus:328
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cpb.nl/sites/default/files/publicaties/download/cpb-discussion-paper-328-impact-funding-targeted-pre-school-interventions-school-readiness.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Deming, 2009. "Early Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head Start," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 111-134, July.
    2. Marianne Bertrand & Jessica Pan, 2013. "The Trouble with Boys: Social Influences and the Gender Gap in Disruptive Behavior," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 32-64, January.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2009. "The Effect of Grade Retention on High School Completion," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 33-58, July.
    6. Tim Kautz & James J. Heckman & Ron Diris & Bas ter Weel & Lex Borghans, 2014. "Fostering and Measuring Skills: Improving Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skills to Promote Lifetime Success," OECD Education Working Papers 110, OECD Publishing.
    7. Marco Manacorda, 2012. "The Cost of Grade Retention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 596-606, May.
    8. Christina Felfe & Natalia Nollenberger & Núria Rodríguez-Planas, 2015. "Can’t buy mommy’s love? Universal childcare and children’s long-term cognitive development," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(2), pages 393-422, April.
    9. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Frina Lin & Jeremy Majerovitz & Benjamin Scuderi, 2016. "Childhood Environment and Gender Gaps in Adulthood," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 282-288, May.
    10. Marianne P. Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes & Thurston Domina, 2014. "Experimental Evidence on Distributional Effects of Head Start," NBER Working Papers 20434, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    12. Havnes, Tarjei & Mogstad, Magne, 2015. "Is universal child care leveling the playing field?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 100-114.
    13. 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.
    14. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    15. Milagros Nores & Steven W. Barnett, 2012. "Benefits of Early Childhood Interventions Across the World: (Under) Investing in the Very Young," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 1, pages 200-228.
    16. Tarjei Havnes & Magne Mogstad, 2011. "No Child Left Behind: Subsidized Child Care and Children's Long-Run Outcomes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 97-129, May.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Ariel Marek Pihl, 2018. "Head Start and Mothers' Work: Free Child Care or Something More?," Working Papers 18-13, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    7. Brutti, Zelda & Montolio, Daniel, 2021. "Preventing criminal minds: Early education access and adult offending behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 97-126.
    8. 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.
    9. 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).
    10. Drange, Nina & Havnes, Tarjei & Sandsør, Astrid M.J., 2016. "Kindergarten for all: Long run effects of a universal intervention," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 164-181.
    11. Alison Andrew & Orazio Attanasio & Raquel Bernal & Lina Cardona Sosa & Sonya Krutikova & Marta Rubio-Codina, 2019. "Preschool Quality and Child Development," NBER Working Papers 26191, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Lance Lochner & Youngmin Park, 2017. "Correlation, Consumption, Confusion, or Constraints: Why Do Poor Children Perform so Poorly?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 102-147, January.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Richard J. Murnane, 2013. "U.S. High School Graduation Rates: Patterns and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 370-422, June.
    16. Jenkins, Jade M. & Duncan, Greg J. & Auger, Anamarie & Bitler, Marianne & Domina, Thurston & Burchinal, Margaret, 2018. "Boosting school readiness: Should preschool teachers target skills or the whole child?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 107-125.
    17. Drange, Nina & Havnes, Tarjei, 2015. "Child Care Before Age Two and the Development of Language and Numeracy: Evidence from a Lottery," IZA Discussion Papers 8904, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. 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).
    19. 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.
    20. Yamaguchi, Shintaro & Asai, Yukiko & Kambayashi, Ryo, 2018. "How does early childcare enrollment affect children, parents, and their interactions?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 56-71.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    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:cpb:discus:328. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpbgvnl.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.