Publisher:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel und Hamburg
Abstract:
The paper adds to the literature on extracurricular early childhood education and child development by exploiting unique data on an educational project in Germany, the Junior University (JU). By utilizing a quasi-experimental study design we estimate the causal short-term effect of JU enrollment and show that attending JU significantly leads to higher school readiness, i.e. higher cognitive and non-cognitive abilities. Although the effect of attending JU on school readiness is quite small, the results are plausible and pass various robustness checks.