The Effect of Early Childhood Education on Adult Criminality: Evidence from the 1960s through 1990s
利用行政犯罪数据，研究发现早期儿童教育改善可大幅降低成年后犯罪行为（约20%），效果远超以往基于考试成绩的估计，且对高贫困地区和无补贴照护地区效果更显著。
We compare the effects of early childhood education on adult criminal behavior across time periods, using administrative crime data that provide significant precision advantages over existing work. We find that improvements in early childhood education led to large (20 percent) reductions in later criminal behavior, reductions that far exceed those implied by estimates of test score gains in prior studies. While the benefits generated account for a large portion of the costs of the education provided, we find substantial relative gains from the targeting of funds to high-poverty areas and areas without existing access to subsidized care.