Child care has become increasingly important as more women with children work. As more children spend more time in non-parental care, states have put in place licensing requirements with the intention of improving the quality of out-of-home care. However, regulations and licensing requirements...

Female labor market choices depend on the availability, affordability, and quality of child care. In this paper, we evaluate different regulatory measures and their effect on both the quality and the cost of child care. First, we analyze data on regulations and costs to estimate the effect of...