Chicago Initiative for Economic Development and Early Childhood (CEDEC) Conference | HCEO

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Description

This conference brought together leading researchers and key members of international organizations to discuss state-of-the-art research on early childhood development integrating the role of the family influences with early childhood interventions. This conference was organized by CDEC and co-sponsored by the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global working Group. The main goals of the conference were the following:

To understand the status of child well-being around the world
To compare and integrate in a unifying framework the joint effects of family influence and social interventions on child development.
To understand how interventions supplement and interact with family influences
To take stock of interventions in countries at different stages of development and understand the mechanism through which they influence child development and late life outcomes
To identify priorities: Are early childhood interventions cost effective compared to alternative uses of funds? At what stage of a person’s life-cycle and a country’s economic development?
To discuss the benefits of prevention vs. the costs of remediation
To re-conceptualize the notion of inequality of opportunity and the proper measure of child disadvantage

Program

April 20, 2012

4:00 to 4:10

Introduction by CEDEC

4:10 to 4:40

Introduction and Opening Remarks

James J. Heckman

The University of Chicago

4:40 to 7:25

Status of children, nature of family influence and the definition of child poverty

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

Columbia University

The University of Chicago

Martha Nussbaum

The University of Chicago

Moderator

University of Chicago

What does disadvantage means? What does it imply in terms of the role of children’s interventions?
How could we appropriately measure inequality and disadvantage during childhood?
What do we know about the current physical, cognitive and emotional development of young children around the world? What are the differences across regions?
How has poverty/disadvantage changed in the last decades? Does this have implications for targeting and designing current interventions?
What are the limitations of current measures of disadvantage given the modern knowledge about early childhood development?

8:25 to 10:40

The family: its influence on cognition, personality and health

University of California, Irvine

Edward Melhuish

Birkbeck College / University of London / University of Oxford

Mark Rosenzweig

Yale University

Moderator

The University of Chicago

How does the family influence early childhood development through behavior? Through genes? Through the interaction between the two?
What is the role of the family on the intergenerational transmission of health, cognition, socio-emotional skills and other traits? On the formation of capabilities over the life-cycle?
Early vs. late: what are the effects of investing in the womb and in the prenatal period? How do they compare with investments in later periods?
How important are family influences vs. social influences (school, community and peer influences)?
How do the mechanisms of family influences on ECD differ across developmental contexts?

11:10 to 1:00

Early Interventions as supplements to family life.

University of Pennsylvania

Yale University

Moderator

University of Michigan

How does the family respond to interventions? To what extent should interventions aim to influence families as well as children? Is there any evidence of complementarity or substitution?
What is the role of parental and community involvement in ECI? What environmental and social factors have detrimental effects on the gains obtained by ECIs?
How do interventions on the mothers impact child wellbeing?

April 21, 2012

3:30 to 5:20

Early Interventions: mechanisms, timing and outcomes

University of California Berkeley

Ricardo Paes de Barros

National Institute for Applied Economic Research

Inter-American Development Bank

Moderator

University of Florida

In the formation of skills, how can we compare the role of early childhood interventions with the role of the family? How can we evaluate different mechanisms of intervention?
When should we intervene? For which capabilities is timing critical for remediation and for which ones is timing not an important factor?
What are the channels/mechanisms through which interventions impact later outcomes? How do they differ between developed and developing countries?

5:50 to 6:45

What is the return to child development compared to other strategies?

University of California, Irvine

University of California Berkeley

Mark Rosenzweig

Yale University

Moderator

James J. Heckman

The University of Chicago

What are the benefits of early childhood interventions relative to other strategies of economic development?
What are the costs of remediation versus the benefits of prevention in different economic environments?
Which aspects of child development have the highest rate of return in different developmental contexts? Nutritional supplementation, cognitive stimulation, parenting, emotional support?
Prioritization of limited funds: should government invest in early childhood development or focus on other public interventions?

6:45 to 7:35

Overview panel: taking a step forward

Orazio Attanasio

University College London

University of Pennsylvania

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

Columbia University

Inter-American Development Bank

Moderator

University of Chicago

What are the main lessons from ECD interventions?
How can interventions be designed or improved to enhance their effectiveness?
What are the challenges in applying the lessons learned from these interventions to other settings, particularly in developing countries?
Which developmental dimensions or interactions require more research?
There is substantial evidence that ECIs are effective, yet there is not much known about best practices, or which components of ECI work. What are the key issues to address to advance this research agenda further?
In the light of what you have learned through your results and what has been addressed in this conference, if you could go back in time, what would you change in the interventions you have participating in?