Clive Belfield

The High/Scope Perry Preschool Program: Cost–Benefit Analysis Using Data from the Age-40 Followup

This paper presents an updated cost-benefit analysis of the High/Scope Perry preschool Program, using data on individuals aged 40. Children were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. Program costs are compared against treatment impacts on educational resources, earnings, criminal activity, and welfare receipt. Net present values are calculated for participants, the general public, and society. The treatment group obtains significantly higher earnings. For the general public, higher tax revenues, lower criminal justice system expenditures, and lower welfare payments easily outweigh program costs; they repay

The Effects of Competition Between Schools on Educational Outcomes: A Review for the United States

12.90 for every

The Benefits of Attending Community College: A Review of the Evidence.

1 invested. However, program gains come mainly from reduced crime by males.

How Well Can We Measure Graduate Over- Education and Its Effects?

This article systematically reviews U.S. evidence from cross-sectional research on educational outcomes when schools must compete with each other. Competition typically is measured by using either the Herfindahl Index or the enrollment rate at an alternative school choice. Outcomes are academic test scores, graduation/attainment, expenditures/efficiency, teacher quality, students’ post-school wages, and local housing prices. The sampling strategy identified more than 41 relevant empirical studies. A sizable majority report beneficial effects of competition, and many report statistically significant correlations. For each study, the effect size of an increase of competition by one standard deviation is reported. The positive gains from competition are modest in scope with respect to realistic changes in levels of competition. The review also notes several methodological challenges and recommends caution in reasoning from point estimates to public policy.

Updating the Economic Impacts of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program.

This article reviews the existing literature on the economic and other benefits of attending community college. First, the article reports on the earnings gains across all students and reviews the evidence for subgroups by gender, minority status, and credits accumulated. The article then reviews the methodological challenges associated with calculating earnings gains from attending a community college. Despite these challenges, the evidence for the significant earnings gains from community college attendance appears to be compelling. The second part of the article reviews the literature on a broader spectrum of gains, such as health, crime, and welfare reliance. This literature is very limited and potentially offers an important area for further research to establish the full returns from community college attendance.

Early Childhood Development and Social Mobility

Using data from two cohorts of graduates, this article examines three aspects of over-education. First, using three new measures, we present an estimate of graduate over-education in the UK. We find that the scale of over-education varies with measurement techniques, with weak correlations between the three measures. Second, across the three measures we estimate the effects of over-education on earnings and job satisfaction. The effects of over-education on earnings and job satisfaction are similar, not withstanding the measures identifying different individuals as being over-educated. One finding is that the effects of being over-educated are more significant for female graduates than male, although it is ambigu ous which gender is more prone to over-education. Third, we examine another source of ambiguity regarding over education, namely that firms upgrade the tasks they allocate to their employees who appear to be over-educated. We find that, for graduates, job quality for the over-educated is not converging to that of the appropriately educated.

Updating the Determinants of Firm Performance: Estimation using the 1998 UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey

This article derives an updated cost-benefit ratio for the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program, an intensive preschool intervention delivered during the 1960s to at-risk children in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Because children were randomly assigned to the program or a control group, differences in outcomes are probably attributable to program status. Data on outcome differences is now available on participants as they reached the age of 40; outcomes include educational attainment, earnings, criminal activity, and welfare receipt. These outcomes are rendered in money terms and compared to the costs of delivering the program to calculate the net present value of the program both for participants and for society. The data show strong advantages for the treatment group in terms of higher lifetime earnings and lower criminal activity. For the general public, gains in tax revenues, lower expenditures on criminal justice, lower victim costs, and lower welfare payments easily outweigh program costs. At a 3% discount rate the program repays

How well do theories of job matching explain variations in job satisfaction across education levels? Evidence for UK graduates

12.90 for every

Improving the Targeting of Treatment: Evidence From College Remediation

1 invested from the perspective of the general public; with a 7% discount rate, the repayment per dollar is

Predicting Success in College: The Importance of Placement Tests and High School Transcripts

5.67. Returns are even higher if the total benefits—both public and private—are counted. However, there are strong differences by gender: a large proportion of the gains from the program come from lower criminal activity rates by the treatment group, almost all of which is undertaken by the males in the sample. The implications of these findings for public policy on early childhood education are considered.