Child care and child outcomes: A comparison across European countries

Abstract

Using data from OECD’s PISA, Eurostat and World Bank’s WDI, we explore how child cognitive outcomes at the aggregate country level are affected by macroeconomic conditions, specifically government education expenditures. We also investigate how investments received in early life are linked to child educational outcomes when children are adolescents. We find that higher shares of the sample with pre-primary education in early years are associated with better later outcomes.