The Rationale for Interventions to Foster Child Development

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Berlinski ◽  
Marcos Vera-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Child Development ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Investment Decisions ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Government Interventions ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Information Set ◽  
Socioemotional Skills

Socioeconomic gradients in health, cognitive, and socioemotional skills start at a very early age. Well-designed policy interventions in the early years can have a great impact in closing these gaps. Advancing this line of research requires a thorough understanding of how households make human capital investment decisions on behalf of their children, what their information set is, and how the market, the environment, and government policies affect them. A framework for this research should describe how children’s skills evolve and how parents make choices about the inputs that model child development, as well as the rationale for government interventions, including both efficiency and equity considerations.

scholarly journals Creation of the WHO Indicators of Infant and Young Child Development (IYCD): metadata synthesis across 10 countries

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. e000747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian A Lancaster ◽  
Gareth McCray ◽  
Patricia Kariger ◽  
Tarun Dua ◽  
Andrew Titman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Child Development ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Receptive Language ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Fine Motor ◽  
Response Analysis ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Low Middle Income Countries ◽  
Common Scale

BackgroundRenewed global commitment to the improvement of early child development outcomes, as evidenced by the focus of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4, highlights an increased need for reliable and valid measures to evaluate preventive and interventional efforts designed to affect change. Our objective was to create a new tool, applicable across multicultures, to measure development from 0 to 3 years through metadata synthesis.MethodsFourteen cross-sectional data sets were contributed on 21 083 children from 10 low/middle-income countries (LMIC), assessed using seven different tools (caregiver reported or directly assessed). Item groups, measuring similar developmental skills, were identified by item mapping across tools. Logistic regression curves displayed developmental trajectories for item groups across countries and age. Following expert consensus to identify well-performing items across developmental domains, a second mapping exercise was conducted to fill any gaps across the age range. The first version of the tool was constructed. Item response analysis validated our approach by putting all data sets onto a common scale.Results789 individual items were identified across tools in the first mapping and 129 item groups selected for analysis. 70 item groups were then selected through consensus, based on statistical performance and perceived importance, with a further 50 items identified at second mapping. A tool comprising 120 items (23 fine motor, 23 gross motor, 20 receptive language, 24 expressive language, 30 socioemotional) was created. The linked data sets on a common scale showed a curvilinear trajectory of child development, highlighting the validity of our approach through excellent coverage by age and consistency of measurement across contributed tools, a novel finding in itself.ConclusionsWe have created the first version of a prototype tool for measuring children in the early years, developed using novel easy to apply methodology; now it needs to be feasibility tested and piloted across several LMICs.

Ready, steady, cook!

2022 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 26-27
Author(s):  
Sarah Scotland
Keyword(s):  
Healthy Eating ◽  
Eating Habits ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Healthy Eating Habits ◽  
Insight Into

Healthy eating is one of the most important habits to encourage from an early age. In this article nutritionist Sarah Scotland gives us insight into a case study promoting healthy eating habits in the early years.

Developmental Tasks

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Figen Gürsoy ◽  
Burçin Aysu
Keyword(s):  
Child Development ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Developmental Tasks ◽  
Developmental Task ◽  
Education Environment

Recognizing this period and the features in this period is regarded very important in terms of evaluating, following, and supporting child development. The concept of a developmental task should be approached in each period in order to understand the development. An individual should be biologically ready to carry out the developmental tasks belonging to the period he is in. However, in addition to biological readiness, the environmental conditions like the education environment should be appropriate in order to carry out the developmental tasks. Especially in the early years, schools have crucial roles in children's fulfillment of the developmental tasks and developing. Development periods and development duties should be known in order to observe and understand the development process better. Based on this view, the development periods and the development duties are to be explained in this section.

Agreeing to disagree: structuring future capital investment provisions in joint ventures

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-22
Author(s):  
Edgar Elliott ◽  
Lois D’Costa ◽  
James Bamford
Keyword(s):  
Joint Ventures ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Joint Venture ◽  
Investment Decisions ◽  
Capital Investments ◽  
Agreeing To Disagree ◽  
Structural Work ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
Contractual Structures

Abstract Prior to entering into any joint venture agreement (JVA), dealmakers should be aware of the options available to resolve future investment disagreements. There are three broad capital investment structures commonly found in joint ventures: (i) standard passmark rules; (ii) non-consent/opt-out; and (iii) sole risk. Within each category, deal practitioners have numerous options to tailor capital investment structures. As much as possible, deal practitioners should contemplate the most likely areas of disagreement, and then tailor the capital investment structures appropriately to ensure that the joint ventures (JV) can manage capital investment decisions in an efficient, value-preserving way. While it is impossible to establish a formula to determine which specific contractual structures will best accommodate future capital investments in a given JV, companies should weigh various factors to inform their position. We reviewed 40 JVAs to understand various capital investment mechanics and how they differ based on the nature of the venture and owner context. Our research found an extremely diverse array of creative structural work-arounds to address different owner appetites to make future capital investments. The purpose of this article is to describe, illustrate and provide benchmarks on different mechanics and contractual terms found in joint venture agreements, and to offer guidance as to which future capital investment mechanics should be included in venture agreements.

Promotion Signaling and Human Capital Investments

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Waldman ◽  
Ori Zax
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Investment Decisions ◽  
Human Capital Investment ◽  
Capital Investments ◽  
Human Capital Investments ◽  
Asymmetric Learning ◽  
Specific Human Capital ◽  
Investment Choices

In a world characterized by asymmetric learning, promotions can serve as signals of worker ability, and this, in turn, can result in inefficient promotion decisions. If the labor market is competitive, the result will be practices that reduce this distortion. We explore how this logic affects human capital investment decisions. We show that, if commitment is possible, investments will be biased toward the accumulation of firm-specific human capital. We also consider what happens when commitment is not possible and show a number of results including that, if investment choices are not publicly observable, choices are frequently efficient. (JEL D82, J24, J31, M12, M51)

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