Early Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head Start
利用全国青年纵向调查数据，比较参与与未参与Head Start项目的兄弟姐妹，发现该项目使青年期综合结果指数提高0.23个标准差，缩小了中位收入与最低收入家庭儿童差距的三分之一，且效果约为佩里学前教育项目的80%。
This paper provides new evidence on the long-term benefits of Head Start using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. I compare siblings who differ in their participation in the program, controlling for a variety of pre-treatment covariates. I estimate that Head Start participants gain 0.23 standard deviations on a summary index of young adult outcomes. This closes one-third of the gap between children with median and bottom quartile family income, and is about 80 percent as large as model programs such as Perry Preschool. The long-term impact for disadvantaged children is large despite “fade-out” of test score gains.