The Program on Children (Program Report‪)‬

The impact of public policy on the well-being of children continues to be a major area of interest for policymakers. Likewise, the economics of children's issues continue to be a major area of research for members of the Children's Program at the NBER. This program brings together a group of" researchers from across many different fields, including labor economics, public economics, industrial organization, econometrics, and development economics. These researchers come together to work on a diverse set of issues related to the well-being of children, and to present their work in annual meetings each spring and at the NBER's Summer Institute each summer. Since my last report on the Children's Program four years ago, there has been rapid growth in our roster of members, including some of the most exciting young economists in the profession. The number of Working Papers in the last full year before this report, 2007, was almost 40 percent higher than in the last full year before my previous report, 2003. Moreover, there has been a growing diversity of topics addressed by Program researchers, making this summary even more challenging! In this report, I focus on the contributions of this group of researchers to eight areas over the past four years: intergenerational linkages between parent and child; the impact of early life circumstances on later child outcomes; fertility and family structure; child health; children in developing economies; public policies (particularly child care and preschool) and child welfare; risky behavior by and around youths; and education.