TY  - JOUR
AU  - Herbst,Chris M.
AU  - Tekin,Erdal
TI  - Child Care Subsidies and Child Development
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14474
PY  - 2008
Y2  - November 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14474
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14474.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Chris M. Herbst
School of Public Affairs, ASU, Mail Code 3720
411 N. Central Ave., Ste. 450
Phoenix, AZ 85004-0687
E-Mail: chris.herbst@asu.edu

Erdal Tekin
Department of Economics
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 3992
Atlanta, GA 30302-3992
Tel: 404/413-0163
Fax: 404/413-0145
E-Mail: tekin@gsu.edu
AB  - Child care subsidies are an important part of federal and state efforts to move welfare recipients into employment.  One of the criticisms of the current subsidy system, however, is that it overemphasizes work and does little to encourage parents to purchase high-quality child care.  Consequently, there are reasons to be concerned about the implications of child care subsidies for child development.  In this paper, we provide a systematic assessment of the impact of subsidy receipt on a wide range of child outcomes.  Drawing on rich data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, we document a negative relationship between child care subsidies and child development.  In particular, our results suggest that subsidy receipt in the year before kindergarten lowers reading and math test scores and increases a variety of behavior problems at kindergarten entry.  Some of these negative effects persist to the end of kindergarten.  A tentative explanation for the poorer outcomes is that subsidized children are more likely to receive intense exposure to low-quality child care.
ER  -