The effects of universal state pre-kindergarten on the child care sector: The case of Florida's voluntary pre-kindergarten programAuthor-Name: Bassok, Daphna

Luke C. Miller and Eva Galdo

Economics of Education Review, 2016, vol. 53, issue C, 87-98

Abstract: Over the past two decades states have drastically increased their investments in pre-kindergarten programs. One major question about state investments in early childhood education programs is to what extent these initiatives create new child care options rather than crowd-out existing private child care options. We investigate this issue using Florida's universal pre-kindergarten program (VPK), a national leader with respect to preschool access, as a case study. Leveraging a 9-year panel of data we find that the introduction of Florida's VPK program expanded the size of the state's licensed child care market by 13% relative to the predicted market size. Using a synthetic control difference-in-difference approach we also show that VPK led to an increase in the percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled in formal care but a drop in the percentage of 3-year-olds enrolled in these settings. Implications are discussed.

Keywords: Early childhood education; Universal service provision; Sector-specific aid; Subsidies; Preschool; Crowd-out (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H21 H44 H52 I28 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:53:y:2016:i:c:p:87-98

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2016.05.004

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