Structured Music as Human Capital: Thresholds, Complementarities, and Simulation Evidence

This repository contains the complete simulation and replication package accompanying the article “Structured Music as Human Capital: Thresholds, Complementarities, and Simulation Evidence”. It documents how structured cultural participation—specifically the Enescu Festival’s Children’s Concert Series—is modeled as an input in a Becker–Heckman style skill-formation framework featuring: (i) a pedagogical quality threshold, (ii) home and school complementarities, (iii) age-sensitive returns, and (iv) a joint cognitive–affective (“health-like”) channel.
Contents:
1. Simulation code implementing the human capital production function, including:
• Intensity of exposure (M), pedagogical quality (Q), and an age shifter g(A)
• Effective inputs with complements: M_eff = M(1 + φ), Q_eff = Q(1 + ψ)
• A quality threshold Q* distinguishing the high-quality scenario (S1) from the below-threshold scenario (S2)
• An optional health-like state S_t that scales returns and moderates outcome variance
2. Generated datasets (CSV) used to compute all reported statistics:
• Group means and difference-in-differences (DiD) contrasts at baseline, post-test, and follow-up
• First-stage, OLS, and IV (LATE) estimates, including Anderson–Rubin confidence sets
• Heterogeneity analyses by age, baseline executive function quartiles, and health-like proxy
• Cost-effectiveness grids reporting RON per 0.1 SD gain under alternative cost and effect-size assumptions
3. Figure and table outputs:
• Diminishing returns to intensity (M)
• Quality threshold patterns comparing S1 and S2
• DiD trajectories over time
• Robustness checks (age curvature, threshold smoothing, exclusion violations, spillovers, practice effects, attrition)
• Joint-investment channel plots linking cognitive and affective components
4. A documentation file linking:
• Each script to the corresponding tables and figures in the manuscript
• Key parameter choices to the rationale summarized in the appendices
All data are simulated and contain no identifiable information. The repository is designed to ensure transparency and reproducibility, and to serve as a modular template for researchers planning field experiments or quasi-experimental evaluations of cultural or educational programs. Users can reproduce every table and figure from the paper or adjust parameters (M, Q, φ, ψ, g(A), S_t) to explore alternative program designs, thresholds, and targeting strategies.