A Study of the Microdynamics of Early-Childhood Learning

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Heckman, James; Zhou, Jin
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; City University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/739256
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: technology; intervention

摘要

This paper investigates the weekly evolution of skills as measured by unique data from a widely emulated early-childhood home-visiting program in rural China. The design of the study avoids input endogeneity issues and lack of comparable measures of skills that plague previous studies. Skills, nominally classified as the same, in fact, do not appear to share a common unit scale across levels. They are produced by skill- and life cycle-stage-specific learning processes. A novel dynamic stochastic skill production model for multiple skills is developed, aligning with empirical evidence. The model can explain the fade-out and recovery of measures of learning through the operation of a controlled stochastic process.