Professor Chengfang Liu’s Team Publishes in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

Release date：2025/12/22　　Source： CCAP

On December 20, 2025, the international academic journal Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization published online a research article co-authored by Professor Chengfang Liu’s research team and their collaborators, entitled “The Long-run Human Capital Benefits of the One-Village-One-Preschool Pilot in Rural Northwestern China.”

Abstract

Since its launch in 2009, the One-Village-One-Preschool (OVOP) program has developed into a large-scale social experiment in the field of rural preschool education in China. A distinctive feature of the program is its rigorous teacher selection criteria combined with sustained professional development support. Exploiting variations in children’s exposure to OVOP across villages and at different ages, this study identifies the long-run causal effects of the program on human capital formation among children in rural northwestern China.

The empirical results show that exposure to OVOP during the preschool period has significant and lasting positive effects on children’s human capital accumulation through high school. Specifically, each additional year of exposure to OVOP in preschool increases the probability of entering an academically selective high school by an average of 4.6 percentage points, while reducing the likelihood of grade repetition by 3.8 percentage points. Further mechanism analyses reveal that the quality of education provided by OVOP centers—particularly teacher qualifications—is the key driver of these benefits. The effects operate primarily through improvements in early childhood skills, which subsequently translate into better academic performance during compulsory education. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that children in the upper-middle range of the ability distribution benefit the most. Preliminary cost–benefit analyses suggest that the return on investment of OVOP is at least 4.1:1, and the marginal value of public funds (MVPF) ranges from 6.2 to infinity, indicating exceptionally high cost-effectiveness.

Overall, this study demonstrates that the OVOP program not only substantially improves participants’ long-term educational outcomes, but also provides a scalable and highly cost-effective pathway for promoting educational equity and human capital development in rural China by enhancing the quality of preschool education and leveling the starting point for disadvantaged children.

Tang Yalin, a 2024 PhD graduate of the School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences at Peking University and currently an Associate Professor at the College of Economics and Management, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, is the first author of this paper. Professor Chengfang Liu and Ms. Yingquan Song from the China Institute for Educational Finance Research at Peking University serve as the corresponding authors.

Reference
Tang, Yalin, Chengfang Liu*, Yingquan Song*. The Long-run Human Capital Benefits of the One-Village-One-Preschool Pilot in Rural Northwestern China. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107377.

Full text available at:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107377