News and Announcements

February 15, 2019

CEHD Director James J. Heckman’s research featured in Quartz

CEHD Director James Heckman has “demonstrated the economic case for why the best investment a policymaker can make is in the earliest years of childhood,” writes Quartz.            
January 10, 2019

CEHD Early Childhood Research Featured by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

CEHD Executive Director Alison Baulos and CEHD alumni Jorge Luis Garcia discuss the importance of high-quality early childhood education in a Policies for Action blog post. The authors highlight the research efforts, led by CEHD Director James Heckman and Schaeffer Center Director Dana Goldman, on the costs and benefits of The Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC) and the Carolina Approach to Responsive Education (CARE), two essentially identical early childhood programs. “ABC/CARE represents a 13.7 percent per-year, return on investment (tax-adjusted),” the authors write. “Our benefit/cost analysis predicts the program generates a benefit of over $7 for every dollar spent.” Bails and Garcia conclude that it is essential for policy makers not to focus on the short-term academic gains of early childhood education. “The more relevant measure of value is the long-term health, social and economic benefits produced,” they write. “We have powerful evidence that high-quality early childhood education is a cost-effective strategy for supporting life-long health outcomes, promoting economic growth, and reducing social costs.” You can read the full article here. You can read more about Heckman and Goldman’s research project here.        
December 19, 2018

CEHD is Hiring Post-Doctoral Scholars

The Center for the Economics of Human Development (CEHD) at the University of Chicago is actively seeking Post-Doctoral Scholars interested in the economics of creating and measuring skills. Scholars are expected to conduct empirical collaborative work on one (or more) focused projects. Descriptions for past and ongoing projects can be found on the Center’s website. Scholars can propose new independent research projects consistent with the Center’s broad aims.
December 13, 2018

CEHD Director James J. Heckman Named to Illinois’ “Educational Success Committee”

CEHD Director James J. Heckman has been tapped to join Illinois Governor-elect J.B. Pritzker’s transition committee on education. The transition team was announced on November 27 at the Genevieve Melody STEM Elementary School in the West Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago.
October 2, 2018

Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five

In their new working paper, “Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Tyranny of the Top Five,” CEHD Director  James J. Heckman and CEHD Predoctoral Fellow Sidharth Moktan examine the relationship between top five publications and tenure decisions.
July 27, 2018

Academic Partnership Between CEHD and the Universidade de São Paulo to Focus on Early Childhood Intervention

The Center for the Economics of Human Development (CEHD) at The University of Chicago and the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) are partnering on a collaborative research initiative focusing on early childhood intervention.
June 25, 2018

Collaborative Research Between CEHD and IESR at Jinan University, China, Will Explore Human Flourishing

The Center for the Economics of Human Development (CEHD) at The University of Chicago and the Institute for Economic and Social Research (IESR) at Jinan University are partnering on collaborative research exploring human flourishing.
January 24, 2018

CEHD Director James J. Heckman Shares Advice on Early Childhood Development

Professor James J. Heckman recently spoke to the Financial Times regarding his findings on early childhood development. He told FT that evidence shows that many early childhood programs “are not as powerful as some people had hoped.”
January 10, 2018

Professor Heckman on Financial Times’ Alphachat Podcast

How do skills affect outcomes? How can we foster skills most efficiently? Learn the answers to these questions and more as the Center’s director James J. Heckman is interviewed by Alexandra Scaggs of the Financial Times.
January 3, 2018

Steven Durlauf Receives Named Professorship at the University of Chicago

CEHD Associate Director Steven N. Durlauf has been named the Steans Family Professor in Educational Policy at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.