On September 25, Pablo Brugarolas, a member of EQUALITAS, defended his doctoral thesis entitled “Essays in Applied Economics,” supervised by Sara Ayllón of the Universitat de Girona and also a member of EQUALITAS.

The work reevaluates the effectiveness of early childhood education through two meta-analyses and a quasi-experimental study in Catalonia to offer a more precise vision of its effects on child development and mothers' employment.

The thesis analyzes to what extent early childhood education policies achieve their objectives and why, sometimes, the results seem more optimistic than they really are. First, it reviews two decades of causal studies on universal preschool education and shows, after correcting for publication bias, that the effects on child development are more modest and less lasting than classic reviews suggest, and that structural indicators explain little of this variation. Next, it synthesizes the causal evidence on mothers' employment and finds that, on average, the aggregate impacts are moderate, but they are relevant for mothers who access the service, with greater intensity in lower-income households and in contexts with high female participation. Finally, it offers causal evidence for Catalonia by combining the expansion of 0–2 year old students in public nurseries (2004–2010) with the cuts in primary school teachers after the 2008 crisis. This study shows that early access appreciably improves performance five years later, but these gains are eroded in schools strongly affected by austerity, showing that the benefits of the initial investment depend on stable and quality subsequent school environments.

With this research, the new doctor provides rigorous evidence that qualifies expectations about the scope and persistence of early childhood education, and guides the design of educational policies towards coherent frameworks throughout the entire educational trajectory.

The thesis committee consisted of Tomas Havranek (Charles University), Libertad González (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) and Pedro R. D. Bom (Deusto Business School).