scholarly journals Class-Size Caps, Sorting, and the Regression-Discontinuity Design

2009 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Urquiola ◽  
Eric Verhoogen
Keyword(s):  
Class Size ◽  
Student Outcomes ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Household Characteristics ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Education Market ◽  
The Relationship

This paper examines how schools' choices of class size and households' choices of schools affect regression-discontinuity-based estimates of the effect of class size on student outcomes. We build a model in which schools are subject to a class-size cap and an integer constraint on the number of classrooms, and higher-income households sort into higher-quality schools. The key prediction, borne out in data from Chile's liberalized education market, is that schools at the class-size cap adjust prices (or enrollments) to avoid adding an additional classroom, which generates discontinuities in the relationship between enrollment and household characteristics, violating the assumptions underlying regression-discontinuity research designs. (JEL D12, I21, I28, O15)

scholarly journals Winners and Losers of the Ballot: Electronic vs. Traditional Paper Voting Systems in Brazil

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Schneider ◽  
Kelly N. Senters
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Electronic Voting ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Voting Systems ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Ballot Design ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Gradual Transformation

AbstractScholars concur that free and fair elections are essential for proper democratic functioning, but our understanding of the political effects of democratic voting systems is incomplete. This article mitigates the gap by exploiting the gradual transformation of voting systems and ballot structures in Brazil’s 1998 executive elections to study the relationship between voting systems and viable and nonviable candidates’ vote shares, using regression discontinuity design. It finds that the introduction of electronic voting concentrated vote shares among viable candidates and thus exhibited electoral bias. We posit that this result occurred because viable candidates were better able to communicate the information that electronic voters needed to cast valid ballots than were their nonviable counterparts. The article uses survey data to demonstrate that electronic voters responded to changes in ballot design and internalized the information viable candidates made available to them.

Political Devolution and Resistance to Foreign Rule: A Natural Experiment

2014 ◽  
Vol 108 (3) ◽  
pp. 642-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEREMY FERWERDA ◽  
NICHOLAS L. MILLER
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Central Question ◽  
World War ◽  
Foreign Occupation ◽  
The Relationship

Do foreign occupiers face less resistance when they increase the level of native governing authority? Although this is a central question within the literature on foreign occupation and insurgency, it is difficult to answer because the relationship between resistance and political devolution is typically endogenous. To address this issue, we identify a natural experiment based on the locally arbitrary assignment of French municipalities into German or Vichy-governed zones during World War II. Using a regression discontinuity design, we conclude that devolving governing authority significantly lowered levels of resistance. We argue that this effect is driven by a process of political cooptation: domestic groups that were granted governing authority were less likely to engage in resistance activity, while violent resistance was heightened in regions dominated by groups excluded from the governing regime. This finding stands in contrast to work that primarily emphasizes structural factors or nationalist motivations for resistance.

scholarly journals Long-Term Contextual Effects in Education: Schools and Neighborhoods

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-377
Author(s):  
Jean-William Laliberté
Keyword(s):  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Spatial Regression ◽  
Contextual Effects ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Long Term Impact

This paper estimates the long-term impact of growing up in better neighborhoods and attending better schools on educational attainment. First, I use a spatial regression-discontinuity design to estimate school effects. Second, I study students who move across neighborhoods in Montreal during childhood to estimate the causal effect of growing up in a better area (total exposure effects). I find large effects for both dimensions. Combining both research designs in a decomposition framework, and under key assumptions, I estimate that 50–70 percent of the benefits of moving to a better area on educational attainment are due to access to better schools. (JEL H75, I21, R23)

Does Free Community College Improve Student Outcomes? Evidence From a Regression Discontinuity Design

2021 ◽  
pp. 016237372199314
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Bell
Keyword(s):  
Community College ◽  
Student Outcomes ◽  
Degree Attainment ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Bachelor's Degree ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
College Gpa ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Bachelor's Degree Attainment

In this article, I utilize a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effects of Tulsa Achieves—a prevalent and understudied type of tuition-free college program. In contrast to concerns regarding tuition-free community college suppressing bachelor’s degree attainment, I find that Tulsa Achieves increased the likelihood of transferring to 4-year colleges by 13 to 14 percentage points and increased bachelor’s degree attainment by approximately 2 percentage points. The estimates for shorter outcomes are underpowered to detect policy relevant effects, but suggest Tulsa Achieves increased college GPA and had a null impact on credit accumulation, retention, and graduation from Tulsa Community College.

How Sticky Is Retirement Behavior in the U.S.?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-55
Author(s):  
Manasi Deshpande ◽  
Itzik Fadlon ◽  
Colin Gray
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Cohort Analysis ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Suggestive Evidence ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Retirement Behavior ◽  
The U.S

Abstract We study how increases in the U.S. Social Security full retirement age (FRA) affect benefit claiming behavior and retirement behavior separately. Using long panels of Social Security administrative data, we implement complementary research designs of a traditional cohort analysis and a regression-discontinuity design. We find that while claiming ages strongly and immediately shift in response to increases in the FRA, retirement ages exhibit persistent “stickiness” at the old FRA of 65. We use several strategies to explore the likely mechanisms behind the stickiness in retirement and find suggestive evidence that employers play a role in workers' responses to the FRA.

The Protestant Ethic Reexamined: Calvinism and Industrialization

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (13-14) ◽  
pp. 1963-1994
Author(s):  
Jeremy Spater ◽  
Isak Tranvik
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Spatial Regression ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

Can cultural differences affect economic change? Max Weber famously argued that ascetic Protestants’ religious commitments—specifically their work ethic—inspired them to develop capitalist economic systems conducive to rapid economic change. Yet today, scholars continue to debate the empirical validity of Weber’s claims, which address a vibrant literature in political economy on the relationship between culture and economic change. We revisit the link between religion and economic change in Reformed Europe. To do so, we leverage a quasi-experiment in Western Switzerland, where certain regions had Reformed Protestant beliefs imposed on them by local authorities during the Swiss Reformation, while other regions remained Catholic. Using 19th-century Swiss census data, we perform a fuzzy spatial regression discontinuity design to test Weber’s hypothesis and find that the Swiss Protestants in the Canton of Vaud industrialized faster than their Catholic neighbors in Fribourg.

scholarly journals Wild bootstrap for fuzzy regression discontinuity designs: obtaining robust bias-corrected confidence intervals

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-231
Author(s):  
Yang He ◽  
Otávio Bartalotti
Keyword(s):  
Confidence Intervals ◽  
Class Size ◽  
Student Outcomes ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Fuzzy Regression ◽  
New Method ◽  
Wild Bootstrap ◽  
Bootstrap Procedure ◽  
Related Literature ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Designs

Summary This paper develops a novel wild bootstrap procedure to construct robust bias-corrected valid confidence intervals for fuzzy regression discontinuity designs, providing an intuitive complement to existing robust bias-corrected methods. The confidence intervals generated by this procedure are valid under conditions similar to the procedures proposed by Calonico et al. (2014) and related literature. Simulations provide evidence that this new method is at least as accurate as the plug-in analytical corrections when applied to a variety of data-generating processes featuring endogeneity and clustering. Finally, we demonstrate its empirical relevance by revisiting Angrist and Lavy (1999) analysis of class size on student outcomes.

Impacts of winter heating on the population mobility of northern China's prefectural cities: evidence from a regression discontinuity design

Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haiya Cai ◽  
Yongqing Nan ◽  
Yongliang Zhao ◽  
Haoran Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Estimation Error ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Population Mobility ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Research Studies

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to regard winter heating as a quasi-natural experiment to identify the possible causal effects of winter heating on population mobility. However, there are scant research studies examining the effect of atmospheric quality on population mobility. There also exists some relevant research studies on the relationship between population mobility and environmental degradation (Lu et al., 2018; Reis et al., 2018; Shen et al., 2018), and these studies exist still some deficiencies.Design/methodology/approachThe notorious atmospheric quality problems caused by coal-fired heating in winter of northern China have an aroused widespread concern. However, the quantitative study on the effects on population mobility of winter heating is still rare. In this study, the authors regard the winter heating as a quasi-natural experiment, based on the of daily panel data of 58 cities of Tencent location Big Data in China from August 13 to December 30 in 2016 and August 16 to December 30 in 2017, and examine the impacts of winter heating on population mobility by utilizing a regression discontinuity method.FindingsThe findings are as follows, in general, winter heating significantly aggravates regional population mobility, but the impacts on population mobility among different cities are heterogeneous. Specifically, the effects of winter heating on population mobility is greater for cities with relatively good air quality, and the effects is also more obvious for big and medium-sized cities than that in small cities. In addition, different robustness tests, including continuity test, different bandwidth tests and alternative empirical model, are adopted to ensure the reliability of the conclusion. Finally, the authors put forward corresponding policy suggestions from the three dimensions of government, enterprises and residents.Originality/valueFirst, regarding winter heating as a quasi-natural experiment, a regression discontinuity design method is introduced to investigate the relationship between winter heating and population mobility, which is helpful to avoid the estimation error caused by endogeneity. Second, the authors use the passenger travel “big data” based on the website of Tencent Location Big Data, which can effectively capture the daily characteristics of China's population mobility. Third, this study discusses the population mobility from the perspective of winter heating and researches population mobility before and after winter heating, which is helpful in enriching the research on population mobility.

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