Despite growing evidence about the significance of Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs, public investment has been relatively low, resulting in slower expansion of evidence-based ECD programs. This dissertation consists of three essays on conducting and using economic evaluation methods to scale up early childhood education and development…

Cost studies are program evaluations that judge program worth by relating program costs to program benefits. There are three sets of strategies: cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness, and cost-utility analysis, although the last appears infrequently. The authors searched relevant databases to identify 103 cost studies in education and then reduced the…

Government expansion of child care services is based on the assumption that both parents are employed (the adult worker model) and make cost-benefit calculations in choosing child care (the rational economic choice model). This paper addresses this assumption, based on research examining mothers' assessments of appropriate child care. These…