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Despite substantial evidence that resources and outcomes are transmitted across generations, there has been limited inquiry into the extent to which antipoverty programs actually disrupt the cycle of bad outcomes. We leverage the rollout of the United States’s largest early-childhood program, Head Start, to estimate the effect of early-childhood exposure among mothers on their children’s long-term outcomes. We find evidence of intergenerational transmission of effects in the form of increased educational attainment, reduced teen pregnancy, and reduced criminal engagement in the second generation. These effects correspond to an estimated increase in discounted second-generation wages of 6%–11%, depending on specification. Exploration of earlier outcomes suggests an important role for changes in parenting behavior and potential noncognitive channels. 

Abstract The enormous increase in mid-IR sensitivity and spatial and spectral resolution provided by the JWST spectrographs enables, for the first time, detailed extragalactic studies of molecular vibrational bands. This opens an entirely new window for the study of the molecular interstellar medium in luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs). We present a detailed analysis of rovibrational bands of gas-phase CO, H₂O, C₂H₂, and HCN toward the heavily obscured eastern nucleus of the LIRG VV 114, as observed by NIRSpec and the medium resolution spectrograph on the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI MRS). Spectra extracted from apertures of 130 pc in radius show a clear dichotomy between the obscured active galactic nucleus (AGN) and two intense starburst regions. We detect the 2.3μm CO bandheads, characteristic of cool stellar atmospheres, in the star-forming regions, but not toward the AGN. Surprisingly, at 4.7μm, we find highly excited CO (T_ex≈ 700–800 K out to at least rotational levelJ= 27) toward the star-forming regions, but only cooler gas (T_ex≈ 200 K) toward the AGN. We conclude that only mid-infrared pumping through the rovibrational lines can account for the equilibrium conditions found for CO and H₂O in the deeply embedded starbursts. Here, the CO bands probe regions with an intense local radiation field inside dusty young massive star clusters or near the most massive young stars. The lack of high-excitation molecular gas toward the AGN is attributed to geometric dilution of the intense radiation from the bright point source. An overview of the relevant excitation and radiative transfer physics is provided in an appendix.