Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation.
Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation.
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DOI：
10.3982/ecta6551
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发表时间：
2010-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Schennach S
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Cunha F;Heckman J;Schennach S
本文制定并估计了儿童认知和非认知技能的多阶段生产函数。产出取决于父母环境和童年不同阶段的投资。我们估计一个时期的投资与该时期的技能存量之间的替代弹性，以评估早期对儿童投资与后期补救相比的好处。我们建立了一类一般非线性因子模型的非参数识别。我们方法的副产品是一个评估儿童干预的框架，该框架不依赖于任意缩放的测试分数作为输出，并认识到不同任务中技能的不同影响。利用估计的技术，我们确定了针对具有不同父母和个人先天禀赋的儿童的最佳干预目标。在认知技能产生的生命周期的后期阶段，可替代性降低。它在生命周期的后期阶段增加，以产生非认知技能。这一发现对于针对弱势群体的政策设计具有重要意义。对于某些不利条件和结果的配置，最好在童年后期进行相对更多的投资。
This paper formulates and estimates multistage production functions for child cognitive and noncognitive skills. Output is determined by parental environments and investments at different stages of childhood. We estimate the elasticity of substitution between investments in one period and stocks of skills in that period to assess the benefits of early investment in children compared to later remediation. We establish nonparametric identification of a general class of nonlinear factor models. A by-product of our approach is a framework for evaluating childhood interventions that does not rely on arbitrarily scaled test scores as outputs and recognizes the differential effects of skills in different tasks. Using the estimated technology, we determine optimal targeting of interventions to children with different parental and personal birth endowments. Substitutability decreases in later stages of the life cycle for the production of cognitive skills. It increases in later stages of the life cycle for the production of noncognitive skills. This finding has important implications for the design of policies that target the disadvantaged. For some configurations of disadvantage and outcomes, it is optimal to invest relatively more in the later stages of childhood.