Inaugural Early Years Economic Summit to drive better investment

Harvard health economist and demographer Professor David Bloom will lead CoLab’s inaugural Early Years Economic Summit next month. Professor Bloom will be in Perth as a guest of Telethon Kids to deliver the Institute’s Annual Community Lecture on 1 November, and to deliver keynote remarks at the Summit and lead discussions at the Early Years Economic Think Tank on 8 November.

One of CoLab’s key priorities is developing the economic understanding of early childhood services and community interventions, with a focus on where the best early investments can be made.

At the Summit CoLab will bring together economic experts across the health, education, labour and welfare economic disciplines to identify research priorities for economic analysis of investment in the early years in Australia. These research priorities will link the currently siloed understanding of return on investment across the four economic disciplines to provide a comprehensive economic analysis of the early years in Australia.

By taking this ‘whole of life’ approach, the research will build a holistic understanding of the long-term benefits to children’s health, education and wellbeing and to society by investing in early childhood. It will also seek to quantify the costs of not taking positive action in the early years. The results of this research will support policymakers and practitioners by helping to prioritise services to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Professor Bloom is Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography in the Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health. His work focuses on health, demography, education, and labor. In recent years, he has written extensively on primary, secondary, and tertiary education in developing countries and on the links among health status, population dynamics, and economic growth.