IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/34833.html

Dynamic Complementarity

Author

Listed:
  • James J. Heckman
  • Haihan Tian
  • Zijian Zhang
  • Jin Zhou

Abstract

Dynamic complementarity is the concept that past investments that lead to higher stocks of skill at one age promote the growth of skills from investment at that age. We define and provide evidence on dynamic complementarity using unique Chinese data from a home visiting program for young children targeted to parents in rural China. In addition, we investigate growth in learning due to innate, parental, and environmental factors that occur in the absence of any formal intervention.

Suggested Citation

  • James J. Heckman & Haihan Tian & Zijian Zhang & Jin Zhou, 2026. "Dynamic Complementarity," NBER Working Papers 34833, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34833
    Note: CH ED PE TWP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w34833.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman & Stefano Mosso, 2014. "The Economics of Human Development and Social Mobility," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 689-733, August.
    2. Joachim Freyberger, 2021. "Normalizations and misspecification in skill formation models," Papers 2104.00473, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2025.
    3. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman & Susanne M. Schennach, 2010. "Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 883-931, May.
    4. James J. Heckman & Jin Zhou, 2026. "A Study of the Microdynamics of Early-Childhood Learning," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 134(1), pages 49-85.
    5. James Heckman & Flavio Cunha, 2007. "The Technology of Skill Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 31-47, May.
    6. Juan Chaparro & Aaron Sojourner & Matthew J. Wiswall, 2020. "Early Childhood Care and Cognitive Development," NBER Working Papers 26813, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Yuehao Bai, 2022. "Optimality of Matched-Pair Designs in Randomized Controlled Trials," Papers 2206.07845, arXiv.org.
    8. Emilia Del Bono & Josh Kinsler & Ronni Pavan, 2022. "Identification of dynamic latent factor models of skill formation with translog production," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(6), pages 1256-1265, September.
    9. Francesco Agostinelli & Matthew Wiswall, 2025. "Estimating the Technology of Children’s Skill Formation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 133(3), pages 846-887.
    10. Jin Zhou & James Heckman & Bei Liu & Mai Lu, 2026. "The Impact of a Prototypical Home Visiting Program on Child Skills," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 119-148.
    11. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Lance Lochner, 2020. "Early and Late Human Capital Investments, Borrowing Constraints, and the Family," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(3), pages 1065-1147.
    12. Yuehao Bai, 2022. "Optimality of Matched-Pair Designs in Randomized Controlled Trials," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(12), pages 3911-3940, December.
    13. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman, 2008. "Formulating, Identifying and Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    14. Yoram Ben-Porath, 1967. "The Production of Human Capital and the Life Cycle of Earnings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(4), pages 352-352.
    15. Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2005. "Exact and Approximate Stepdown Methods for Multiple Hypothesis Testing," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 100, pages 94-108, March.
    16. Kenneth I. Wolpin & Petra E. Todd, 2006. "Assessing the Impact of a School Subsidy Program in Mexico: Using a Social Experiment to Validate a Dynamic Behavioral Model of Child Schooling and Fertility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1384-1417, December.
    17. Daniela Del Boca & Christopher Flinn & Matthew Wiswall, 2014. "Household Choices and Child Development," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 137-185.
    18. Flavio Cunha & Eric Nielsen & Benjamin Williams, 2021. "The Econometrics of Early Childhood Human Capital and Investments," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 487-513, August.
    19. Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2005. "Stepwise Multiple Testing as Formalized Data Snooping," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1237-1282, July.
    20. Petra E. Todd & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 2003. "On The Specification and Estimation of The Production Function for Cognitive Achievement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 3-33, February.
    21. Daniela Del Boca & Christopher Flinn & Ewout Verriest & Matthew Wiswall, 2026. "Parenting with Patience: Parental Incentives and Child Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 134(1), pages 210-284.
    22. Frederik H. Bennhoff & Jorge Luis García & Duncan Ermini Leaf, 2024. "The Dynastic Benefits of Early-Childhood Education: Participant Benefits and Family Spillovers," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 44-73.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jorge Luis García & James J. Heckman, 2023. "Parenting Promotes Social Mobility Within and Across Generations," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 349-388, September.
    2. Gallegos, Sebastián & García, Jorge Luis, 2024. "Childcare and parenting in the production of early life skills," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    3. Francesconi, Marco & Heckman, James J, 2015. "Symposium on Child Development and Parental Investment: Introduction," Economics Discussion Papers 16868, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    4. James J. Heckman & Jin Zhou, 2026. "A Study of the Microdynamics of Early-Childhood Learning," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 134(1), pages 49-85.
    5. Orazio Attanasio & Sarah Cattan & Emla Fitzsimons & Costas Meghir & Marta Rubio-Codina, 2020. "Estimating the Production Function for Human Capital: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Colombia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(1), pages 48-85, January.
    6. James J. Heckman & Stefano Mosso, 2014. "The Economics of Human Development and Social Mobility," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 689-733, August.
    7. Attanasio, Orazio & Cattan, Sarah & Fitzsimons, Emla & Meghir, Costas & Rubio-Codina, Marta, 2015. "Estimating the Production Function for Human Capital: Results from a Randomized Control Trial in Colombia," IZA Discussion Papers 8856, IZA Network @ LISER.
    8. Emily Moschini, 2019. "Child Care Subsidies with One- and Two-Parent Families," 2019 Meeting Papers 42, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Heckman, James J. & Raut, Lakshmi K., 2016. "Intergenerational long-term effects of preschool-structural estimates from a discrete dynamic programming model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 191(1), pages 164-175.
    10. Black, Nicole & Jayawardana, Danusha & Heckley, Gawain, 2024. "Children’s time allocation and the socioeconomic gap in human capital," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    11. Lochner, Lance & Park, Youngmin, 2024. "Earnings dynamics and intergenerational transmission of skill," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 243(1).
    12. Serap Sagir & Çağaçan Değer & Durdane Sirin Saracoglu, 2023. "The Growth Effects of Alternative Early Childhood Development Investment Policies in the Turkish Economy," ERC Working Papers 2304, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Nov 2023.
    13. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Lance Lochner & Youngmin Park, 2017. "Correlation, Consumption, Confusion, or Constraints: Why Do Poor Children Perform so Poorly?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 102-147, January.
    14. Borga, Liyousew G. & Münich, Daniel & Kukla, Lubomir, 2021. "The socioeconomic gradient in child health and noncognitive skills: Evidence from the Czech Republic," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    15. Thakurata, Indrajit & D'Souza, Errol, 2018. "Child labour and human capital in developing countries - A multi-period stochastic model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 67-81.
    16. Flèche, Sarah & Lekfuangfu, Warn N. & Clark, Andrew E., 2021. "The long-lasting effects of family and childhood on adult wellbeing: Evidence from British cohort data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 290-311.
    17. Heckman, James J. & Galaty, Bridget & Tian, Haihan, 2023. "The Economic Approach to Personality, Character and Virtue," IZA Discussion Papers 16133, IZA Network @ LISER.
    18. Jorge Rodriguez, 2017. "Understanding the Effects of Income and Child Care Subsidies on Children's Academic Achievement," 2017 Papers pro1077, Job Market Papers.
    19. Eshaghnia, Sadegh S. M. & Heckman, James J. & Landersø, Rasmus, 2023. "Maximum Impact Intergenerational Associations," IZA Discussion Papers 16038, IZA Network @ LISER.
    20. Sylvia, Sean & Luo, Renfu & Zhong, Jingdong & Dill, Sarah-Eve & Medina, Alexis & Rozelle, Scott, 2022. "Passive versus active service delivery: Comparing the effects of two parenting interventions on early cognitive development in rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
    • C5 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34833. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.