期刊-NBER美国国民经济研究局-summer2000_63页_4mb

NBER Summer 2000 Reporter Summary

Core Content

The NBER Program on Children highlights the importance of child well-being in economic research, focusing on five key areas: education, transfer programs, family structure, youth employment, and risky behaviors. The program uses rigorous empirical methods to assess the impact of various policies and economic factors on children's outcomes, often leveraging natural experiments and comparative studies.

Main Topics and Key Findings

1. Education

• Impact of Educational Interventions: Research shows that additional years of education yield substantial returns, such as a 9% increase in earnings. This is supported by studies using twin data and GED programs.
• GED Degree: Studies by Tyler, Murnane, and Willett find that GED recipients experience a 10-19% increase in earnings, especially among lower-ability students.
• Class Size: Smaller class sizes improve student performance and college test-taking rates, particularly for minority students. However, the effect is modest compared to teacher quality.
• Teacher Quality: Teacher quality is a more significant factor than class size in improving academic outcomes. Better teacher training, as shown by Angrist and Lavy, can be more cost-effective than reducing class sizes.
• Special Education: Increased spending on special education improves outcomes for disabled students without harming regular education students.
• Higher Education: College attendance and completion rates are significantly influenced by financial aid, with higher returns for more expensive colleges. However, attending more selective colleges does not always yield better labor market outcomes.

2. Transfer Programs

• Medicaid: Expansions of Medicaid have improved child health outcomes and healthcare utilization, but have also led to reduced private insurance coverage. The program also affects treatment intensity, with lower reimbursement levels impacting care quality.
• Welfare Reforms: Welfare reforms have reduced public assistance participation and increased family earnings. However, the impact on child maltreatment is mixed.
• Child Support: Expansions in child support programs have increased child support awards and receipt, contributing to gains in child support payments.
• Head Start: While beneficial for test scores, the effects of Head Start fade quickly for black children due to poor quality schools post-intervention.
• Public Housing: Public housing reduces residential crowding and grade repetition, offering benefits over alternative housing arrangements.
• Child Care Subsidies: Lower child care costs increase the likelihood of mothers working, especially in welfare programs. However, there is caution in measuring the impact of child care on youth outcomes due to potential biases.

3. Family Structure

• Abortion Legalization: Research suggests that children born after increased access to abortion would have faced worse living conditions, such as higher poverty rates and single-female-headed households.
• Teen Motherhood: Teen mothers do not suffer significant long-term educational or labor market disadvantages compared to women who delay childbearing due to miscarriage.
• Nontraditional Family Arrangements: Children in stepfamilies receive less food and face other disadvantages compared to those raised by biological parents, indicating the importance of biological ties.

4. Youth Employment

• Youth Employment Rates: Youth employment and wages are higher in Germany than in the U.S., attributed to a stronger public sector presence.
• Minimum Wages: Higher minimum wages reduce youth employment, but this effect is mitigated by labor market flexibilities such as youth subminimum wages.
• High School Work: The net effects of working during high school on labor market outcomes are uncertain and likely modest.

5. Risky Behaviors

• Economic Incentives: Prices, regulations, and opportunity costs significantly influence youth risky behaviors, such as smoking, drug use, and criminal activity.
• Smoking: A 10% increase in cigarette prices leads to a 6.7% decline in smoking rates among high school seniors.
• Marijuana Use: Price sensitivity is also observed in marijuana use, as noted by Pacula and her co-authors.
• Criminal Behavior: The stringency of the legal system, particularly for youth versus adults, is a key determinant of youth crime.
• Traffic Safety: Mandatory seat belt laws and higher minimum drinking ages reduce youth fatalities.
• Teen Pregnancy and Crime: There have been significant declines in both teen pregnancy and youth crime, though no single explanation unifies these trends.
• Long-Term Effects: Youth risky behaviors, such as smoking and drinking, often persist into adulthood, and dropping out of school in response to low unemployment rates is unlikely to result in later educational completion.

Conclusion

The NBER Program on Children has made substantial contributions to understanding the factors that influence child well-being. It emphasizes the importance of empirical methods in evaluating policy impacts and highlights the complex interplay between economic incentives, social policies, and long-term outcomes for children. The program continues to grow, providing a robust empirical foundation for policy-making and economic analysis.

Key Information

• Funding: The NBER relies on support from individuals, corporations, and private foundations.
• Publications: The NBER Reporter is not copyrighted and can be freely reproduced with proper attribution.
• Contact: Contributions and subscription inquiries should be directed to the NBER's office at 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-5398.
• Editor: Donna Zerwitz oversees the preparation of the NBER Reporter.
• Research Projects: The program has conducted extensive research on topics such as GED, class size, Medicaid, child support, and risky behaviors among youth.

References

• Ashenfelter and Rouse (1997): "Income, Schooling, and Ability"
• Cawley, Heckman, and Vytlacil (1998): "Cognitive Ability and the Rising Return to Education"
• Tyler, Murnane, and Willett (1998): "Estimating the Impact of the GED"
• Krueger (1997): "Experimental Estimates of Education Production Functions"
• Case and Yogo (1999): "Does School Quality Matter?"
• Hoxby (1998): "The Effects of Class Size"
• Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin (1998): "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement"
• Dynarski (1999): "Does Aid Matter?"
• Cameron and Heckman (1999): "The Dynamics of Educational Attainment"
• Card and Lemieux (2000): "Can Falling Supply Explain the Rising Return to College?"
• Dale and Krueger (1999): "Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College"
• Gruber (1996): "Health Insurance for Poor Women and Children"
• Currie and Grogger (2000): "Medicaid Expansions and Welfare Contractions"
• Paxson and Waldfogel (1999): "Work, Welfare, and Child Maltreatment"
• Rouse (1997): "Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement"
• Currie and Yelowitz (1997): "Are Public Housing Projects Good for Kids?"
• Levine and Anderson (1999): "Child Care and Mothers' Employment Decisions"
• Lemke, Witte, Queralt, and Witt (2000): "Child Care and the Welfare to Work Transition"
• Angrist and Lavy (1998): "Does Teacher Training Affect Pupil Learning?"
• Gruber and Zinman (2000): "Youth Smoking in the United States"
• Pacula et al. (2000): "Marijuana and Youth"
• Levitt and Lochner (2000): "The Determinants of Juvenile Crime"
• Dee and Evans (2000): "Teens and Traffic Safety"