top of page
Smart solutions: upstream investment
Investing upstream makes economic sense.
Studies have consistently demonstrated that investments in
early childhood development have the highest economic return. Nobel Prize winner and Economics Professor James Heckman demonstrated that investing in early childhood education can result in a 7% to 10% per year return on investment, with a 13% return for programs focused on the first five years of a child’s life.
This is more than the average annual return on the stock market. Expanded investment in these programs would actually stimulate the economy and reduce that national deficit by increasing productivity and tax revenue in addition to reducing costs in social services, health care, and the criminal justice system.
Source: The Heckman Equation, heckmanequation.org
bottom of page