High-quality early childhood programs have been shown to have substantial
benefits in reducing crime, raising earnings, and promoting education. Much less
is known about their benefits for adult health. We report the long-term health
impacts of one of the oldest and most heavily cited early childhood
interventions with long-term follow-up evaluated by the method of randomization:
the Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC). Using recently collected biomedical
data, we find that disadvantaged children randomly assigned to treatment have
significantly lower prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic
diseases in their mid-30s. The evidence is especially strong for males. The mean
systolic blood pressure among the control males is 143, while only 126 among the
treated. One in four males in the control group is affected by metabolic
syndrome, while none in the treatment group is. To reach these conclusions, we
address several statistical challenges. We use exact permutation tests to
account for small sample sizes and conduct a parallel bootstrap confidence
interval analysis to confirm the permutation analysis. We adjust inference to
account for the multiple hypotheses tested and for nonrandom attrition. Our
evidence shows the potential of early life interventions for preventing disease
and promoting health.
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ABSTRACT The Rate of Return to the High/Scope Perry Preschool ProgramThis paper estimates the rate of return to the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program, an early intervention program targeted toward disadvantaged African-American youth. Estimates of the rate of return to the Perry program are widely cited to support the claim of substantial economic benefits from preschool education programs. Previous studies of the rate of return to this program ignore the compromises that occurred in the randomization protocol. They do not report standard errors. The rates of return estimated in this paper account for these factors. We conduct an extensive analysis of sensitivity to alternative plausible assumptions. Estimated social rates of return generally fall between 7-10 percent, with most estimates substantially lower than those previously reported in the literature. However, returns are generally statistically significantly different from zero for both males and females and are above the historical return on equity. Estimated benefit-to-cost ratios support this conclusion.JEL Classification: D62, I22, I28
This paper estimates the rate of return to the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program, an early intervention program targeted toward disadvantaged African-American youth. Estimates of the rate of return to the Perry program are widely cited to support the claim of substantial economic benefits from preschool education programs. Previous studies of the rate of return to this program ignore the compromises that occurred in the randomization protocol. They do not report standard errors. The rates of return estimated in this paper account for these factors. We conduct an extensive analysis of sensitivity to alternative plausible assumptions. Estimated annual social rates of return generally fall between 7-10 percent, with most estimates substantially lower than those previously reported in the literature. However, returns are generally statistically significantly different from zero for both males and females and are above the historical return on equity. Estimated benefit-to-cost ratios support this conclusion.
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