Code for : The Impact of a Childhood Social Skills and Self-Control Training on Adult Economic Outcomes: evidence from a randomized experiment using administrative data

A randomized trial shows that a childhood intervention to improve the social skills and self-control of disruptive kindergarten boys in the 1980s had significant large impacts on adult economic outcomes. The intervention increased average yearly employment income by about 20% and decreased the average yearly amount of social transfers by almost 40%. We provide evidence that the mechanism of impact was improvements in trust and self-control and not cognitive skills. We estimate that $1 invested in a program such as this yields about $18 in benefits over the lifetime of the beneficiary with an internal rate of return of 17%.