Article ID: | iaor201521981 |
Volume: | 47 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 35 |
End Page Number: | 69 |
Publication Date: | Feb 2014 |
Journal: | Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'conomique |
Authors: | Warburton William P, Warburton Rebecca N, Sweetman Arthur, Hertzman Clyde |
Keywords: | behaviour, economics, education, social |
Understanding the causal impacts of taking at‐risk youth into government care is part of the evidence base for policy. Two sources of exogenous variation affecting alternative subsets of the at‐risk population provide causal impacts interpreted as local average treatment effects. Placing 16‐ to18‐year‐old males into care decreases or delays high school graduation, increases income assistance receipt, and has alternative effects on criminal convictions depending upon the instrument employed. This suggests that asking whether more or fewer children should be taken into care is insufficient; it also matters which, and how, children are taken into care.