Employing a sequential exploratory mixed methods design this dissertation has two objectives. First, drawing on theories of the firm, nonprofit strategic management, and economic household decision making, I will develop a conceptual framework to understand the differences between how center-based and home-based providers participating in the child care subsidy system make decisions about offering nontraditional hour care, and how policies influence these decisions. In this first phase, in-depth semi-structured interviews will be conducted with a sample of subsidized child care providers to validate and strengthen the proposed conceptual framework. Second, I will apply this conceptual framework to estimate the effects of differential reimbursement rates using a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences estimation. Using pooled cross-sectional data from the National Survey of Early Care and Education, the second phase will exploit state-level variation in differential reimbursement rate policies over time to investigate whether these policies increase the probability that subsidized providers will offer nontraditional hour care. Models will test whether these policies have different effects on center-based and home-based providers. (author abstract)