Benefit-Cost Calculations of Government Investment into Early Childhood Development in Rural China

doi:10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2019.03.010

Abstract

Abstract: One of the primary goals of Early Childhood Development (ECD) initiatives is to prepare children for their eventual participation in elementary school and beyond. It is well known that a large share of ECD's benefits is realized through higher enrollment, less dropout and higher performance. Governments in low and middle-income countries, however, often do not know the value of such investments and are seeking knowledge of the returns to state-supported ECD programs. This paper uses a World Bank-produced ECD calculator to estimate the economic benefits of early child development (ECD) programs in China. According to our findings, which utilize high quality data that are shown in the paper supported by academic research or government source of information, the returns to investment in economic terms are high. We find that the benefit-cost ratio is from 4.2 to 8.4. Such returns are shown to be higher than many other government-supported initiatives and are equally as high as those found in many other countries.

Key words: early childhood development, benefit-cost analysis, rural China, human capital

Wang Lei, Xian Yue, Zhang Siqi, Bai Yu, Dorien Emmers, Menno Pradhan, Scott Rozelle. Benefit-Cost Calculations of Government Investment into Early Childhood Development in Rural China[J]. Journal of East China Normal University(Educationa, 2019, 37(3): 118-128.

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