Overview
Janet Currie is an economist (Princeton at time of wiki writing; earlier UCLA/Columbia) specializing in child health, early childhood interventions, and the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. She is best known for the Currie and Thomas (1995) sibling-comparison evaluation of Head Start, which found that test score gains for African-American children fade out in elementary school — not because of program failure, but because black Head Start graduates subsequently attend lower-quality schools. She has also produced foundational work on environmental health and infant outcomes.
Key Contributions / Features
- Head Start evaluation (Currie and Thomas 1995, NLSY siblings): established the fade-out pattern for African-American children; showed fade-out is mediated by subsequent school quality, not Head Start quality; white children show persistent gains in test scores and grade repetition.
- Long-run Head Start benefits (Garces, Thomas, and Currie 2002, PSID): white Head Start participants more likely to graduate high school and attend college; black participants less likely to be charged with a crime — evidence of long-run benefits beyond cognitive test scores.
- Cost-benefit assessment (Currie 2001): short/medium-term benefits recoup 40–60% of Head Start costs; if long-run effects 1/4 as large as Perry Preschool, the program pays for itself.
- α vs. β subsidy trade-off (with Blau 2004): see David Blau.
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