Abstract：This paper introduces cost-benefit analysis methods to analyze the relationship between children’s sleep duration and their development. With the survey data covering six provinces in China，there are two main findings.First，children’s sleep duration has inverted U-shaped effects on “performance” and “interpersonal” noncognitive skills， and their marginal benefits are decreasing. The optimal sleep duration is 8.42-11 hours if taking into account the opportunity cost effect. Second，the opportunity cost of sleep duration varies according to how to spent time on other activities，which affects the net benefit of sleep duration. It implicates that deciding on the sleep duration of children should take into account its opportunity cost to maximize its benefits.
2021, Vol. 60 
