Estimating the Technology of Children's Skill Formation

Francesco Agostinelli and Matthew Wiswall ()

No 22442, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In this paper we study the process of children’s skill formation. Using a dynamic latent factor structure, we show how measurement restrictions on observed measures aid the identification of skill technology features. We then use our identification results to develop and estimate the joint dynamic process of latent investment and skill development, allowing for static and dynamic complementarities in skill production between parental investments and children’s skills. Using data for the United States, we estimate that parental investments are particularly productive in producing cognitive skills during early childhood (ages 5-6). Moreover, we find that the marginal productivity of investments in this period is substantially higher for children with lower existing skills, suggesting the optimal targeting of interventions to disadvantaged young children.

JEL-codes: C38 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-lab
Note: CH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (81)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22442.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22442

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22442

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().