Human capital investments at an early age appear crucial for individual outcomes. Family size might affect these investments influencing parental time and economic resources invested in children's education. This aspect is related to the children quantity-quality trade-off proposed by Becker...

Using Swedish population register data on cohorts born 1982-1994 (N=1,087,750), we examine the effects of preterm births on school grades using sibling fixed effect models which compare individuals with their non-preterm siblings. We test for heterogeneous effects by degree of prematurity, as...

This paper examines the effects of a substantial change in publicly funded paid parental leave in Germany on child development and socio-economic development gaps. For children born before January 1, 2007, parental leave benefits were means-tested and paid for up to 24 months after childbirth....

We examine how the gender of a sibling affects earnings, education and family formation. Identification is complicated by parental preferences: if parents prefer certain sex compositions over others, children's gender affects not only the outcomes of other children but also the very existence of...

We estimate a dynamic model of multidimensional human capital development from childhood through adolescence and into early adulthood for a Peruvian cohort born in 1994. We exploit multiple measures of cognitive and socio-emotional skills and a latent factor structure to estimate flexible skills...

Can governments leverage existing service-delivery platforms to scale early childhood development (ECD) programs? We experimentally study a large-scale home-visiting intervention providing materials and counseling --- integrated into Bangladesh's national nutrition program without extra...

This paper studies parental beliefs about the returns to two factors affecting the development and long-term outcomes of children: (i) parenting styles defined by the extent of warmth and control parents employ in raising children, and (ii) neighborhood quality. Based on a representative sample...

This paper documents disparities in cognitive development-as measured by a receptive vocabulary test-between children from households with high and low socioeconomic status (SES) in two different phases of childhood (before and after early school years) in four developing countries: Peru,...

We explore the extent to which starting primary school earlier by up to one year can help shield children from the detrimental, long-term developmental consequences of having an ill or disabled sibling. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, we employ a Regression...