Abstract
In this paper we estimate the impact of a nationwide public preschool expansion that took place in Spain over the 1990s on criminal behavior later in time. We exploit variation in enrollment rates across Spanish regions and birth-cohorts, and we link education data to a unique administrative crime dataset recording offenses committed in the region of Catalonia over the period 2009-2014. We find that for the average birth cohort, Catalan municipality and year, a 1 percentage point increase in preschool exposure at age 3 yields 1.6% fewer crime actions during youth and young adulthood. We are able to account for region of origin, birth cohort, time and local fixed effects, as well as several region and time-specific controls. Leveraging detailed information on types of crime committed, we propose a categorization of offenses into those likely to have been rationally planned and driven by economic motives, and those in which emotional factors and lack of self-control play a significant role. On average, we find the benefits of preschool to be larger and more robust on crimes belonging to the latter category, suggesting that non-cognitive skills play an important role in explaining the overall effect.
Highlights
Childhood years are recognized by various fields of research as a key stage in life, carrying the power to shape future outcomes all the way through youth and into adulthood
We find a negative impact of early public preschool availability on crime rates in youth and young adulthood: a 1 percentage point increase in preschool access back in the early 1990s yields 1.6% fewer criminal actions in the 2000s
The fact that the expansion was staggered across birth cohorts and Spanish regions provides the key source of variation to our analysis, which is based on a multiplefixed-effects model
Summary
Childhood years are recognized by various fields of research as a key stage in life, carrying the power to shape future outcomes all the way through youth and into adulthood. We observe basic information about the offender, notably his/her birth cohort and region of origin, and detailed information about the offense committed, among which its date, location and type Exploiting this information, in the second part of our analysis we are able to assess the impact that the national preschool expansion program has had on different types of crime separately, which helps us to form a more precise opinion on the potential mechanisms at work behind our main results. We present descriptive statistics (A), analysis on model fit (B), additional tables and figures which are supporting our analysis (C) as well as the information needed to perform benefit-to-cost calculations derived from our estimates (D)
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