The Production of Quality in Child Care Centers

This paper reports estimates of models of the determinants of quality in day care centers. The analysis examines the sensitivity of the results to specification issues that have not been investigated previously. In the best-fitting models that survive an extensive set of specification tests, group size and child-staff ratio have small impacts on the quality of care provided. The effects of staff education and training are typically small as well. The results raise questions about the knowledge base on which to make policy recommendations concerning the benefits of regulations and subsidies intended to improve the quality of child care.