Three Essays on Using Economic Evaluations for Scaling Up Early Childhood Education and Development Programs

Abstract

Despite growing evidence about the significance of Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs, public investment has been relatively low, resulting in slower expansion of evidence-based ECD programs. This dissertation consists of three essays on conducting and using economic evaluation methods to scale up early childhood education and development programs. Specifically, I conduct a benefit-cost analysis of the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC) preschool program, with a focus on health outcomes in mid-adulthood. Further, I analyze the costs of implementing the expansion of the CPC program to four districts in the Midwestern US. I discuss the costs required to scale up an evidence-based high-quality preschool program with a focus on estimating the marginal costs of each of the program’s six quality elements. Finally, I review the existing economic evaluations of Nurse-Family Partnership Home Visiting programs and suggest two innovative financial mechanisms – Pay for Success (PFS) and Data-Driven Philanthropy that can be used to expand access to home-visiting programs by leveraging public-private partnerships.