Breaking the Cycle? Intergenerational Effects of an Antipoverty Program in Early Childhood
利用美国最大早期儿童项目“开端计划”的推广，研究母亲在儿童早期接触该项目对其子女长期结果的影响，发现第二代在教育、青少年怀孕和犯罪方面有改善，估计第二代工资增长6%-11%。
Despite substantial evidence that resources and outcomes are transmitted across generations, there has been limited inquiry into the extent to which antipoverty programs actually disrupt the cycle of bad outcomes. We leverage the rollout of the United States’s largest early-childhood program, Head Start, to estimate the effect of early-childhood exposure among mothers on their children’s long-term outcomes. We find evidence of intergenerational transmission of effects in the form of increased educational attainment, reduced teen pregnancy, and reduced criminal engagement in the second generation. These effects correspond to an estimated increase in discounted second-generation wages of 6%–11%, depending on specification. Exploration of earlier outcomes suggests an important role for changes in parenting behavior and potential noncognitive channels.