Monthly Archives: November 2012

Texas pre-K: what the numbers mean

Posted on November 29, 2012 by

An excellent recent paper by Rodney Andrews, Paul Jargowsky, and Kristin Kuhn examines the effects of Texas’s state pre-K program.  (Hat tip to Sara Mead, whose blog post alerted me to this study.) This paper by Andrews, Jargowsky and Kuhn … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood programs

Universal public services that are redistributive and productive are the key to reducing income inequality

Posted on November 28, 2012 by

Eduardo Porter, a reporter for the New York Times, has an excellent recent column that summarizes some of the evidence for how government can effectively have large effects in reducing income inequality. His column builds on the research of sociologist … Continue reading →

Posted in Distribution of benefits, Early childhood programs

Is our political system really interested in focusing on job creation for the long-term unemployed?

Posted on November 20, 2012 by

The more I read about the inside political debates during the Great Recession and its aftermath, the more I doubt whether the current U.S. political system puts a top priority on boosting employment among the long-term unemployed. For example, based … Continue reading →

Posted in Business incentives, Incentive design issues

Why education is important, and early childhood education salaries

Posted on November 19, 2012 by

The statistics for this blog reveal that by far the top two “search terms” that lead to this blog are variations on the following: “Why education is important”; “early childhood education salary”. I suspect these search terms mostly come from … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood program design issues, Early childhood programs, Economic development

Boosting the recovery and long-run economic growth through job-creation incentives for the long-term unemployed, and early education investments

Posted on November 16, 2012 by

The Congressional Budget Office recently released a report exploring why this economic recovery from the recession trough has been unusually slow. As the report shows, as of the second quarter of 2012,  3 years after the Great Recession’s trough in … Continue reading →

Posted in Business incentives, Early childhood programs, Economic development

What works to reduce income inequality?

Posted on November 2, 2012 by

Lane Kenworthy has an excellent recent essay on what the U.S. can do to increase equality of opportunity. (Kenworthy is a well-known sociologist at the University of Arizona, who has written several insightful books on issues of poverty and income … Continue reading →

Posted in Distribution of benefits, Early childhood programs | 3 Comments