How do parental layoffs and their large attendant income losses affect children's long-term outcomes? This question has proven difficult to answer due to the endogeneity of parental layoffs. I overcome this problem by exploiting the timing of 7 million fathers' layoffs when children are age 12–29 in administrative data for the United States. Layoffs dramatically reduce family income but only slightly reduce college enrollment, college quality, and early career earnings. These effects are consistent with a weak estimated propensity to spend on college out of marginal parental income. I find that larger effects based on firm closures stem from selection. (JEL I23, I24, I26, J13, J22, J31, J63)

In Project STAR, 11,571 students in Tennessee and their teachers were randomly assigned to classrooms within their schools from kindergarten to third grade. This paper evaluates the long-term impacts of STAR by linking the experimental data to administrative records. We first demonstrate that kindergarten test scores are highly correlated with outcomes such as earnings at age 27, college attendance, home ownership, and retirement savings. We then document four sets of experimental impacts. First, students in small classes are significantly more likely to attend college and exhibit improvements on other outcomes. Class size does not have a significant effect on earnings at age 27, but this effect is imprecisely estimated. Second, students who had a more experienced teacher in kindergarten have higher earnings. Third, an analysis of variance reveals significant classroom effects on earnings. Students who were randomly assigned to higher quality classrooms in grades K-3 -as measured by classmates' end-of-class test scores -have higher earnings, college attendance rates, and other outcomes. Finally, the effects of class quality fade out on test scores in later grades but gains in non-cognitive measures persist.

provided excellent research assistance. Weiwei Zhang provided helpful assistance with the 100% census data. Financial support from the Russell Sage Foundation is gratefully acknowledged (Grant No. 83-16-07). All errors are my own. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.