During the period in which he stayed in the United States, as part of the delegation of five students who visited the University of Chicago between July and August to participate in the activities of the Summer Institute in Social Research Methods, the Economics student at Insper David Schwartsman attended three lectures at the Center of Economics for Human Development. “CEHD is the research center run by James Heckman, the 2000 Nobel Prize-winning economist,” he reports. “At these lectures, I had some interactions with Heckman, and he often offered me snacks.”
In addition to sharing food with one of today’s most influential economists, the student had the opportunity to ask questions during the presentations. “Once, I ended up being asked by my boss to write the review, that is, summarize and give my opinion on a report on early childhood policies in the United States. I later discovered that the text was intended for Heckman himself.”
The academic rigor and high level of debates within the CEHD impressed Schwartsman, who is also an undergraduate student in Philosophy at the University of São Paulo (USP). “There were very interesting researchers, people who placed economic theory in dialogue with Aristotle’s thinking, who discussed normatively about inheritance taxes, or who studied the formation of inequalities in Denmark. It really is the frontier of knowledge. I closely followed the development of very recent advances in econometric identification strategies, designs of education experiments that took place in Mexico, brilliant economic studies on child development”, says the student.
The lectures he followed were attended by Professor Heckman. “In these presentations, the custom was that those present could interrupt the guest and ask questions at any time, which Heckman did a lot. It was very intimidating because the presentation lasted for hours, the questions were never ending, and they were very good, but also very difficult.”
The sum of these experiences within CEHD gives us a flavor of what the experience represented for the student. He participated in a specific initiative, the Chicago Home Visiting Partnership Project. It aims to provide Chicago families with the highest quality home visiting services possible and help to understand how and why these programs lead to more positive, long-term outcomes for children and families.
The research is divided into two aspects. First, analyzing how early interactions with caregivers and other adults lead to more robust skill building in children. Next, evaluating which implementation levers influence the quality of service provided.
The hypothesis to be proven is that robust and ongoing support from supervisors and home visitors will enable them to provide support to enrolled parents, who in turn will do the same for their children. “It was a very practical program, it involved structuring psychological experiments, it was very interesting. The program included tools that apply really well to Economic thinking”, he comments. “I did everything from reviewing reports, to literature reviews and interviews.”
The student arrived in Chicago in mid-July and stayed until August 19. In addition to research and lectures, Schwartsman participated in weekly guided tours. “They were very nice. I had very good conversations: a professor came and showed us his Stata code. Another one told us about the system of tens of thousands of equations he set up to calculate the costs of global warming. It was possible to see, in a very hands-on way, how academic research works at the university”, he points out.
The interactions led the student to realize how interdisciplinary research is at the University of Chicago. “In the same research, the professor carries out a historical investigation based on archives and runs econometric time series calculations”, he explains.
There was also time to explore the city. “Chicago is a really cool city. There is public transport, nightlife, museums, beach, trails, bars, restaurants”, says the student. “I went to a music festival and a concert, both of which were amazing, and also to the Chelsea vs Borussia Dortmund pre-season football game.”