March 12-13, 2009
Michigan Union, Kuenzel Room
530 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1308

Sponsors and Organizers

This conference was jointly sponsored by the National Poverty Center, the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Studies, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics through a grant from the National Institute on Aging.

It was coordinated by Bob Schoeni at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, Ariel Kalil at the Harris School at the University of Chicago, Sandro Galea at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, and Rucker Johnson at University of California at Berkeley.

Background

There is a continuing and growing awareness of how early life events affect a wide range of child, adolescent, and adult outcomes.  The goal of this conference, built upon the success of a similar meeting hosted by the NPC in 2007, was to engage researchers in a broad discussion of new findings and future research that should be pursued in this area. An expanded range of disciplines were represented, including social epidemiologists and developmental psychologists, as well as economists.

This two-day conference on the effects of early life events on later life outcomes featured ten presentations by a diverse set of distinguished researchers, and featured a keynote address by Nobel-prize winning economist, James J. Heckman, titled “The Economics and Psychology of Inequality and Human Development.”

Agenda and Conference Papers

March 12, 2009
8:45 - 9:00 AM	Introductions and Overview Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago Bob Schoeni, University of Michigan
9:00 - 10:00 AM	The Association between Early Life Socioeconomic Position and Adult Health, from Preclinical Disease to Mortality: What Do We Know? Bruna Galobardes, University of Bristol* Download Presentation
10:00 - 11:00 AM	Healthy, wealthy, and wise? Physical, economic, & cognitive effects of early life conditions on later life outcomes in the US:  1915-2005 Douglas Almond, Columbia University Hoyt Bleakley, University of Chicago Joseph Ferrie, Northwestern University* Bhashkar Mazumder, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Karen Rolf, University of Nebraska at Omaha Werner Troesken,  University of Pittsburgh Download Presentation
11:00 - 11:15 AM	Break
11:15 - 12:15 PM	How Basic Research on Early Experience and Stress Neurobiology Bear on Preventive Interventions in Early Childhood Megan Gunnar, University of Minnesota* Download Presentation
12:15 - 1:00 PM	Lunch
1:00 - 2:00 PM	Childhood Exposure to the Food Stamp Program: Long-Run Health and Economic Outcomes Hilary Hoynes, University of California, Davis* Douglas Almond, Columbia University Diane Schanzenbach,  University of Chicago Download Presentation
2:00 - 2:15 PM	Break
2:15 - 3:15 PM	The Marginal Child throughout the Life Cycle: Evidence from Early Law Variation Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat, Duke University* Joanna Lahey, Texas A&M University
3:15 - 3:30 PM	Break
3:30 - 5:00 PM	The Economics and Psychology of Inequality and Human Development Keynote Speaker: James Heckman, University of Chicago* Download Presentation
March 13, 2009
8:30 - 9:30 AM	Birth Cohort and the Black-White Achievement Gap: The Role of Health Soon after Birth Bhashkar Mazumder, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago* Kenneth Chay, Brown University Jonathan Guryan, University of Chicago Download Presentation
9:30 - 10:30 AM	Early Childhood Determinants of Depression, Anxiety, and Substance Use Disorders Stephen Gilman, Harvard University*
10:30 - 10:45 AM	Break
10:45 - 11:45 AM	Childhood Health and the Effects on Adult SES Outcomes Jim Smith, RAND* Download Presentation
11:45 - 12:45 PM	Lunch
12:45 - 1:45 PM	Long-run Impacts of Early Childhood Poverty: Evidence from Norwegian Registry Data Greg Duncan, University of California-Irvine and Northwestern University Kjetil Telle, Statistics Norway Kathleen Ziol-Guest, Institute for Children and Poverty* Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago Download Presentation
1:45 - 2:00 PM	Break
2:00 - 3:00 PM	Adverse Childhood Experiences and the Origins of Adult Disease: Evidence from the Dunedin Study Andrea Danese, King’s College* Download Presentation
3:00 - 3:15 PM	Concluding Comments and Next Steps Bob Schoeni, University of Michigan
*Denotes the presenter