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

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Urquiola, Miguel; Verhoogen, Eric
• 署名单位: Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.99.1.179
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 179-215
• 关键词: randomized experiments; student-achievement; public-schools; COMPETITION; PRIVATE; vouchers; stratification; enrollment; QUALITY; CHOICE

摘要

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 oil 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 all additional classroom, which generates discontinuities in the relationship between enrollment and household characteristics, violating the assumptions underlying regression-discontinuity research designs. (JEL D12,121,128, O15)