In the 1960s and 1970s, many states introduced grants for school districts offering kindergarten programs. This paper exploits the staggered timing of these initiatives to estimate the long-term effects of a large public investment in universal early education. I find that white children aged five after the typical state reform were less likely to be high school dropouts and had lower institutionalization rates as adults. I rule out similar positive effects for blacks, despite comparable increases in their enrollment in public kindergartens in response to the initiatives. The explanation for this finding that receives most empirical support is that state funding for kindergarten crowded out participation in federally-funded early education among the poorest five year olds.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
14951.
Length: Date of creation: May 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14951
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Find related papers by JEL classification: H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Health, Education, and Welfare I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities and Races; Non-labor Discrimination J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
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