The Effect of Early Education on The Decision-Making of Boys and Girls
Presented by:
Leandro Carvalho
Center for Economic and Social Research
University of Southern California
Thursday, September 21, 2023
2:30 pm-4:00 pm
Taylor-Hibbard Seminar Room (Rm103)
One way to advance our understanding of individual differences in decision-making is to study the development of children’s decision-making. This paper studies the causal effects of daycare attendance on children’s economic preferences and decision-making abilities, exploiting a lottery system that randomized admissions into oversubscribed daycare centers in Rio de Janeiro. Impacts are estimated separately for boys and girls. Daycare attendance increased the aversion of girls to disadvantageous inequality (i.e., having less than one’s peer) by 0.23 standard deviations (SD). It also increased the decision-making quality of boys by 0.16 SD and decreased their self-control by 0.19 SD.
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