Lisa A. Gennetian

About

Lisa A. Gennetian is the Pritzker Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies and a Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in the Sanford School of Public Policy PhD Program and is an Affiliate of the Center for Child and Family Policy. Additionally, she is a Core Faculty Member at the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy. Her work focuses on early learning policy and child and family policy issues, contributing to discussions on national investments in children, as evidenced by her participation in public policy discussions such as the Policy 360 podcast.

Research topics

• Economic growth
• Economics
• Medicine
• Sociology
• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Geography
• Finance
• Political Science
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• The impact of a poverty reduction intervention on infant brain activity

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2022 · 287 citations

  Significance This study demonstrates the causal impact of a poverty reduction intervention on early childhood brain activity. Data from the Baby’s First Years study, a randomized control trial, show that a predictable, monthly unconditional cash transfer given to low-income families may have a causal impact on infant brain activity. In the context of greater economic resources, children’s experiences changed, and their brain activity adapted to those experiences. The resultant brain activity pat…

  DOI

• Baby’s First Years: Design of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Poverty Reduction in the United States

  PEDIATRICS · 2021 · 104 citations

  Childhood economic disadvantage is associated with lower cognitive and social-emotional skills, reduced educational attainment, and lower earnings in adulthood. Despite these robust correlations, it is unclear whether family income is the cause of differences observed between children growing up in poverty and their more fortunate peers or whether these differences are merely due to the many other aspects of family life that co-occur with poverty. Baby's First Years is the first randomized contr…

  DOI

• Net Worth Poverty in Child Households by Race and Ethnicity, 1989–2019

  Journal of Marriage and Family · 2020 · 50 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  OBJECTIVE: This study is the first to examine net worth poverty, and its intersection with income poverty, by race and ethnicity among child households in the United States. BACKGROUND: Scholarship on economic scarcity for children has largely concentrated on income deficits and thus leaves open important questions about wealth deficits. METHOD: Data come from the 1989-2019 waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances, on households with at least one resident child under the age of 18. Net worth pov…

  DOI

• Cash Transfers and Their Effect on Maternal and Young Children’s Health

  JAMA Pediatrics · 2025-06-16 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access

  Importance: Mothers and children in low-income households are more likely to experience worse mental and physical health than those from higher-income households. Objective: To determine the effect of 4 years of monthly unconditional cash transfers on the mental health of mothers with low-income and the physical health of mothers and children. Design, Setting, and Participants: This was a parallel-group, randomized clinical trial conducted from May 2018 to July 2023. Mother-infant dyads were rec…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Effects of unconditional cash transfers on family processes and wellbeing among mothers with low incomes

  Nature Communications · 2025-08-13 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access

  This study examines causal impacts of unconditional cash transfers on economic hardship and key family processes that may affect children's development. The study randomized 1000 mothers of newborns, with prior-year household income below the federal poverty threshold, to receive unconditional cash transfers of $333 or $20 per month (Clinical Trial Registry number NCT03593356). Data collected approximately 12, 24 and 36 months after the child's birth show a moderate increase in household income…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Household Income and Child Development in the First Years of Life

  NIH · $12.9M · 2017–2028

• Behavioral Insights, Maternal Attention, and Early Language Resources for Low Income Infants

  NIH · $159k · 2017–2019

• NIH Grant R03HD047034

  NIH · $133k · 2006

Frequent coauthors

• Greg J. Duncan

  63 shared

• Jens Ludwig

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  51 shared

• Jeffrey R. Kling

  45 shared

• Lisa Sanbonmatsu

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  35 shared

• Katherine Magnuson

  33 shared

• Lawrence F. Katz

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  33 shared

• Hirokazu Yoshikawa

  32 shared

• Kimberly G. Noble

  Columbia University

  30 shared

Education

• PhD, Economics

  Cornell University

  1998

Similar researchers at Duke University

• Jennifer Lansfordh-92
• Helen F. Laddh-69
• Garry S. Mitchellh-45