Cognitive and non-cognitive costs of daycare 0–2 for children in advantaged families

Margherita Fort and Giulio Zanella
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Andrea Ichino

No 11120, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Exploiting admission thresholds to the Bologna daycare system, we show using RDD that one additional daycare month at age 0–2 reduces IQ by 0.5% (4.7% of a s.d.) at age 8–14 in a relatively affluent population. The magnitude of this negative effect increases with family income. Similar negative impacts are found for personality traits. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis from psychology that children in daycare experience fewer one-to-one interactions with adults, with negative effects in families where such interactions are of higher quality. We embed this hypothesis in a model that lends structure to our RDD.

Keywords: Daycare; Childcare; Child development; Cognitive skills; Non-cognitive skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I20 I28 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-neu and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

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