TY  - JOUR
AU  - Herbst,Chris M.
AU  - Tekin,Erdal
TI  - The Impact of Child Care Subsidies on Child Well-Being: Evidence from Geographic Variation in the Distance to Social Service Agencies
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 16250
PY  - 2010
Y2  - August 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16250
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16250.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  - In recent years, child care subsidies have become an integral part of federal and state efforts to move economically disadvantaged parents from welfare to work.  Although previous empirical studies consistently show that these employment-related subsidies raise work levels among this group, little is known about the impact of subsidy receipt on child well-being.  In this paper, we identify the causal effect of child care subsidies on child development by exploiting geographic variation in the distance that families must travel from home in order to reach the nearest social service agency that administers the subsidy application process.  Using data from the Kindergarten cohort of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, our instrumental variables estimates suggest that children receiving subsidized care in the year before kindergarten score lower on tests of cognitive ability and reveal more behavior problems throughout kindergarten.  However, these negative effects largely disappear by the time children reach the end of third grade.  Our results point to an unintended consequence of a child care subsidy regime that conditions eligibility on parental employment and deemphasizes child care quality.
ER  -