Quantifying the Life-Cycle Benefits of an Influential Early-Childhood Program
量化了一个高质量早期儿童项目在中年时的终身收益,结合实验与非实验数据,估算出内部收益率为13.7%,效益成本比为7.3,为评估社会项目长期收益提供了模板。
This paper quantifies and aggregates the multiple lifetime benefits of an influential high-quality early childhood program with outcomes measured through midlife. Guided by economic theory, we supplement experimental data with non-experimental data to forecast the life-cycle benefits and costs of the program. Our point estimate of the internal rate of return is 13.7% with an associated benefit/cost ratio of 7.3. We account for model estimation and forecasting error and present estimates from extensive sensitivity analyses. This paper is a template for synthesizing experimental and non-experimental data using economic theory to estimate the long-run life-cycle benefits of social programs.