What Matter for Child Development?

No 24-2006, Working Papers from Singapore Management University, School of Economics

Abstract: This paper estimates production functions of child cognitive and social development using a panel data of nine-year old children each with over two hundred home and school inputs as well as family background variables. A tree regression method is used to conduct estimation under various specifications. A small subset of inputs is found consistently important in explaining variances of child development results, including the number of books a child has at various ages and how often a mother reads to child by age five, while the effects of race and maternal employment are negligible when detailed inputs are controlled.

Keywords: child development; tree regression method; panel data inequality; economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J13 C40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sea
Date: Written 2006-05
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Published in SMU Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series

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