This study explores relationships between parental resource trajectories and child development, and their implications for intergenerational mobility. By modifying the child skill formation technology to incorporate new skills during adolescence, we analyze the importance of the timing of family...

This paper presents a new approach to measuring the intergenerational transmission of well-being and a novel perspective on which measures and what age ranges to use to estimate intergenerational social mobility. We select the measures and the age ranges that best predict important human capital...

The literature on skill formation and human capital development clearly demonstrates that early investment in children is an equitable and efficient policy with large returns in adulthood. Yet little is known about the mechanisms involved in producing these long-term effects. This paper presents...

This paper summarizes our recent work on the rate of return and cost-benefit ratio of an influential early childhood program.

The literature on skill formation and human capital development clearly demonstrates that early investment in children is an equitable and efficient policy with large returns in adulthood. Yet little is known about the mechanisms involved in producing these long-term effects. This paper presents...

In contemporary America, racial gaps in achievement are primarily due to gaps in skills. Skill gaps emerge early before children enter school. Families are major producers of those skills. Inequality in performance in school is strongly linked to inequality in family environments. Schools do...

This paper formulates a structural dynamic programming model of preschool investment choices of altruistic parents and then empirically estimates the structural parameters of the model using the NLSY79 data. The paper finds that preschool investment significantly boosts cognitive and...

A growing literature establishes that high quality early childhood interventions targeted toward disadvantaged children have substantial impacts on later life outcomes. Little is known about the mechanisms producing these impacts. This paper uses longitudinal data on cognitive and personality...