Detecting Drivers of Behavior at an Early Age: Evidence from a Longitudinal Field Experiment / Marco Castillo, John A. List, Ragan Petrie, Anya Samek.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Castillo, Marco.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

List, John A.

Petrie, Ragan.

Samek, Anya.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w28288.

NBER working paper series no. w28288

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

We use field experiments with nearly 900 children to investigate how skills developed at ages 3-5 drive later-life outcomes. We find that skills map onto three distinct factors - cognitive skills, executive functions, and economic preferences. Returning to the children up to 7 years later, we find that executive functions, but not cognitive skills, predict the likelihood of receiving disciplinary referrals. Economic preferences have an independent effect: children who displayed impatience at ages 3-5 were more likely to receive disciplinary referrals. Random assignment to a parenting program reduced disciplinary referrals. This effect was not mediated by skills or preferences.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2020.