Temporary Stays and Persistent Gains: The Causal Effects of Foster Care
利用密歇根州儿童福利调查员的准随机分配，研究发现寄养照料改善了儿童的安全和教育成果，且改善在儿童离开寄养系统后持续存在，表明父母改进是重要机制。
Six percent of children in the United States enter foster care by age 18. We estimate the effects of foster care on children's outcomes by exploiting the quasi-random assignment of child welfare investigators in Michigan. We find that foster care improved children's safety and educational outcomes. Gains emerged after children exited the foster system when most were reunified with their birth parents, suggesting that improvements made by their parents were an important mechanism. These results indicate that safely reducing the use of foster care, a goal of recent federal legislation, requires more effective in-home, prevention-focused efforts.