HCEO

On July 1, the new Illinois Department of Early Childhood opened, consolidating early childhood care resources under one roof. Our executive director Alison Baulos Gunasinghe tells WBEZ’s In the Loop podcast that this improves equity and access to quality care for families. State-level coordination of care also helps build capacity by investing in the early care workforce and addressing scarcity.

A look back at the Illinois Department of Early Childhood’s first month How will the new Illinois Department of Early Childhood simplify accessing early childhood services in the state.

On the UChicago Big Brains podcast, HCEO member Dana Suskind explains why responsive, relational human interactions are so important to a child’s development in the earliest years of life. Even in the age of AI, parents and caregivers cannot be replaced or outsourced in building a child’s brain.

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How do IQ and personality traits relate to risk preferences? Our director, The Heckman Equation, and coauthors explore this in a new NBER working paper. They find some gender differences that vary with the size of the risk.

Relating Cognitive Skills and Personality Traits to Economic Preferences: Decision-Making under Cognitive Shocks and Guessing Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.

Personality traits may help explain how people make decisions in risky situations, James J. Heckman (The Heckman Equation) explained in a talk at the 25th Conference of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), held at IMPA - Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada in Brazil on Friday. He previewed research exploring how traits such as openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness relate to economic preferences, such as risk aversion.

Heckman Links Psychology and Economics in Plenary Session - IMPA - Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics The study presented here examines how personality traits can influence decisions involving risk

Our director James J. Heckman (The Heckman Equation) is in Rio to discuss advances in economic theory.

International conference discusses advances in economic theory and gathers Nobel laureates in Rio de Janeiro The International Conference on Public Economic Theory (PET 2026) is part of a series of scientific meetings dedicated to the frontiers of research in economics, featuring participation from internationally distinguished researchers

New work from HCEO member Claudia Golden: Declines in fertility involve greater female autonomy and a mismatch between the desires of men and women. Men generally benefit more from maintaining traditions; women often benefit more from eschewing them."

The Rise of Female Autonomy and the Decline of Fertility: The Role of Mismatch Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.

HCEO member Aaron Soujourner of Institute and colleagues analyzed cell phone data to study family and child care worker commutes to licensed child care centers. Distances vary across regions, but a substantial number of customers and workers drive 10+ miles to reach their provider.

The patterns and variations revealed have implications for designing policies to increase the availability of child care.

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New from HCEO member Claudia Golden:

The Rise of Female Autonomy and the Decline of Fertility: The Role of Mismatch Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.

Our director, James J. Heckman (The Heckman Equation), will deliver the Debreu lecture at the SAET Conference on Current Trends in Economics July 17 in Rio. His UChicago colleague and fellow Nobel Laureate Lars Peter Hansen will also speak later that day.

SAET Conference on Current Trends in Economics - IMPA - Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics    

New research from HCEO member Flavio Cunha and colleagues finds that an intervention to encourage empathy among students can reshape peer relationships in ways that improve academic trajectories.

Empathy, Social Networks, and Academic Achievement: Experimental Evidence on Cross-Productivity in Skill Formation Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.