Collaborative Research: Estimating the Technology of Skill Formation and Maternal Well-Being

这项研究项目将研究父母技能和投资对儿童认知和非认知技能发展的影响，从而影响这些儿童今后的长期社会和经济发展。以前对这些影响的研究依赖于母亲对儿童非认知技能的评估-这一评估可能是有偏见的-没有考虑到母亲对儿童认知和非认知技能发展动态的幸福感。这些遗漏可能会影响父母技能和投资对儿童发展的影响的结果。这项拟议的研究将使用千年队列研究(MCS)来研究父母技能和投资对儿童认知和非认知技能的影响。除了父母对非认知技能的评估外，数据集还包括教师和面试者对非认知技能的评估，以及母亲的身体、心理和情感健康。这将使研究人员能够研究儿童与父母之间的相互联系可能对儿童的发展产生重要的反馈效应；因此，限制可能因上述遗漏而产生的偏见。这一研究项目的结果将为实践者、教育者和政策制定者提供指导，帮助他们制定政策，改善儿童的认知和非认知技能。帮助了解如何提高儿童的认知和非认知技能将导致更强大的劳动力，从而改善美国经济的长期表现。以前关于父母技能和投资对儿童认知和非认知技能发展的影响的研究存在两个潜在的偏差来源：它们依赖于母亲对孩子非认知技能的评估，可能存在偏见，并且没有考虑到孩子的认知和非认知发展可能对母亲技能产生的反馈影响。为了解决这些问题，私营部门督察将利用千年队列研究的两个特点。首先，MCS数据集从母亲、面试者和教师那里收集了儿童非认知技能的测量结果。其次，MCS在每一波调查中都采访了母亲们的心理健康和生活满意度。使用这些数据，PI将估计一种技能形成技术，其特征是动态的、非线性的生产函数，其中输入和输出都是不可观测的。关键输入包括同时期的儿童技能、父母技能和父母投资，而下一阶段儿童和母亲的认知和非认知技能是相关的输出。为了实现识别，研究人员遵循Cunha、Heckman和Schennach(2010)的方法，依靠噪声测量儿童技能、父母技能和每个时期的父母投资。确定母亲评估的儿童非认知技能的污染有赖于允许教师和面试者报告的非认知技能的观察到的衡量标准成为母亲技能和儿童技能的函数。这一研究项目的结果将有助于更好地了解父母技能与投资和儿童成果之间的联系，并将为实践者、教育者和政策制定者制定政策以改善儿童的认知和非认知技能发展提供指导。

This research project will study the effects of parental skills and investment on children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills development thus impacting the long term social and economic development of these children in later life. Previous studies of these effects rely on mothers' assessments of child non-cognitive skills---an assessment that may be biased---and do not account for maternal well-being on the dynamics of the child's cognitive and non-cognitive skill development. These omissions may affect the results of the effects of parental skills and investments on child development. The proposed research will use the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) to study the effects of parental skills and investment on children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills. In addition to assessment of non-cognitive skills by parents, the data set also contain assessment of non-cognitive skills by teachers and interviewers as well as the physical, mental, and emotional health of the mother. This will allow the researchers to study the reciprocal link from child to parent may generate important feedback effects on the child's development; therefore, limiting the biases that may arise from the omissions discussed above. The results of this research project will provide guidance to practitioners, educators and policymakers as they develop policies to improve to improve cognitive and non-cognitive skills of children. Helping to understand how to improve cognitive and non-cognitive skills among children will result in a stronger work force, thus improving the long-run performance of the U.S. economy. Previous studies of the effects of parental skills and investment on children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills development suffer from two potential sources of bias: they rely on the mother's, possibly biased, assessment of the child's non-cognitive skills and do not allow for possible feedback effect the child's cognitive and non-cognitive development may have on the mother's skills. To address these issues, the PIs will use two features of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). First, the MCS dataset collects measures of child non-cognitive skills from mothers, and from interviewers and teachers. Second, the MCS interviews mothers on their mental health and life satisfaction during each wave of the survey. Using this data, the PIs will estimate a technology of skill formation characterized by dynamic, nonlinear production functions where both inputs and outputs are unobserved. Key inputs include contemporaneous child skills, parental skills, and parental investment, while the next period's cognitive and non-cognitive skills for both the child and the mother are the relevant outputs. To achieve identification, the researchers rely on the availability of noisy measures of child skills, parental skills and parental investment each period, following the methodology of Cunha, Heckman and Schennach (2010). The identification of the contamination of mother-assessed child non-cognitive skills relies on allowing the observed measures of non-cognitive skills, as reported by teachers and interviewers, to be a function of both maternal skills and child skills. The results of this research project will contribute to a better understanding of the link between parental skills and investment and child outcomes and will provide guidance to practitioners, educators and policymakers as they develop policies to improve cognitive and non-cognitive skill development of children.