IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucd/wpaper/200809.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Model of Intervention in Childhood

Author

Listed:
  • James Symons

    (Claremont McKenna College)

  • Leon Feinstein

    (Institute for Education, Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning,20 Bedford Way, London WC1H OAL, England Associate at the Centre for the Economics of Education, London School of Economics, England)

Abstract

This paper describes a model and resulting simulations to assess the appropriate age structure of intervention in childhood on the theme: should we intervene early or late? We use asset theory approaches to construct a general model of state investment whose aim is to reduce inequality in human capital. We set out the key parameters of such a model, clarifying the assumptions that must be made by state planners or economists in assessing the relative value of targeted investment at different ages in the presence of a range of elements of uncertainty. We simulate the model showing how the age-investment schedule will vary under different assumptions. Early investment is highly valued because of the likely decline with age in effectiveness but the trade-offs are strongly moderated by other important assumptions around which there is uncertainty or are choice variables of the state planner.

Suggested Citation

  • James Symons & Leon Feinstein, 2008. "A Model of Intervention in Childhood," Working Papers 200809, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucd:wpaper:200809
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ucd.ie/geary/static/publications/workingpapers/gearywp200809.pdf
    File Function: Version 2.3, 2008
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Victor R. Fuchs, 1982. "Economic Aspects of Health," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fuch82-1.
    2. Carneiro, Pedro & Heckman, James J., 2003. "Human Capital Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 821, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Victor R. Fuchs, 1982. "Time Preference and Health: An Exploratory Study," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Aspects of Health, pages 93-120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Fuchs, Victor R. (ed.), 1982. "Economic Aspects of Health," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226267852.
    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. Elena Gouskova & Ngina Chiteji & Frank Stafford, 2010. "Pension Participation: Do Parents Transmit Time Preference?," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 138-150, June.
    2. Alan, Sule & Ertac, Seda, 2015. "Patience, self-control and the demand for commitment: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 111-122.
    3. Aysit Tansel & Halil Ibrahim Keskin, 2017. "Education Effects on Days Hospitalized and Days out of Work by Gender: Evidence from Turkey," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1721, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    4. de Walque, Damien, 2007. "How does the impact of an HIV/AIDS information campaign vary with educational attainment? Evidence from rural Uganda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 686-714, November.
    5. Ryan Edwards, 2013. "The cost of uncertain life span," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1485-1522, October.
    6. Lex Borghans & Angela Lee Duckworth & James J. Heckman & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    7. Jensen, Robert & Lleras-Muney, Adriana, 2012. "Does staying in school (and not working) prevent teen smoking and drinking?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 644-657.
    8. Lechner, Michael & Sari, Nazmi, 2015. "Labor market effects of sports and exercise: Evidence from Canadian panel data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-15.
    9. Pedro Albarran Pérez & Marisa Hidalgo Hidalgo & Iñigo Iturbe-Ormaetxe Kortajarene, 2017. "Schooling and adult health: Can education overcome bad early-life conditions?," Working Papers. Serie AD 2017-09, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    10. Petter Lundborg & Carl Hampus Lyttkens & Paul Nystedt, 2016. "The Effect of Schooling on Mortality: New Evidence From 50,000 Swedish Twins," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(4), pages 1135-1168, August.
    11. Hunt-McCool, Janet & Bishop, Dawn M., 1998. "Health economics and the economics of education: specialization and division of labor," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 237-244, June.
    12. Khwaja, Ahmed & Silverman, Dan & Sloan, Frank, 2007. "Time preference, time discounting, and smoking decisions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 927-949, September.
    13. Böckerman, Petri & Maczulskij, Terhi, 2016. "The Education-health Nexus: Fact and fiction," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 112-116.
    14. Spears Dean, 2011. "Economic Decision-Making in Poverty Depletes Behavioral Control," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-44, December.
    15. Bautista, María Angélica & González, Felipe & Martinez, Luis R. & Muñoz, Pablo & Prem, Mounu, 2020. "Does Higher Education Reduce Mortality? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Chile," SocArXiv 5s2px, Center for Open Science.
    16. Ji, Sisi & Zhu, Zheyi, 2022. "Does higher education matter for health?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2022/4, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    17. Gangwar, Rachna & Singh, Ritvik, 2018. "Analyzing Factors Affecting Financial Literacy and its Impact on Investment Behavior among Adults in India," MPRA Paper 89452, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Marcel Kerkhofs & Maarten Lindeboom, 1995. "Subjective health measures and state dependent reporting errors," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(3), pages 221-235, May.
    19. Breitkopf, Laura & Chowdhury, Shyamal K. & Priyam, Shambhavi & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Sutter, Matthias, 2020. "Do economic preferences of children predict behavior?," DICE Discussion Papers 342, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    20. Naci Mocan & Duha Altindag, 2014. "Education, cognition, health knowledge, and health behavior," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(3), pages 265-279, April.

    More about this item

    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:ucd:wpaper:200809. 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: Geary Tech (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/geucdie.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.