Previous articleNext article Open AccessStill Flying. Reply to "Not a flying start after all?" by Lillebo, Markussen, Roed, ZhaoPedro Carneiro, Katrine Loken, and Kjell G. SalvanesPedro Carneiro, Katrine Loken, and Kjell G. SalvanesPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookxLinkedInRedditEmailPrint SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Political Economy Just Accepted Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/732220 PermissionsRequest permissions HistoryAccepted July 12, 2024 © 2024 The University of Chicago. All Rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

This paper presents new evidence that increases in college enrollment lead to a decline in the average quality of college graduates between 1960 and 2000, resulting in a decrease of 6 percentage points in the college premium. A standard demand and supply framework can qualitatively account for the trend in the college and age premia over this period, but substantial quantitative adjustments are needed to account for changes in quality.

We study the impact of classroom rank on children’s learning using a unique experiment from Ecuador. Within each school, students were randomly assigned to classrooms in every grade between kindergarten and sixth grade. Students with the same ability can have different classroom ranks because of the (random) peer composition of their classroom. Children with higher beginning-of-grade classroom rank have significantly higher test scores at the end of that grade. The impact of classroom rank is larger for younger children and grows over time. Higher classroom rank also improves executive function, child happiness, and teacher perceptions of student ability.

This paper develops methods for evaluating marginal policy changes. We characterize how the effects of marginal policy changes depend on the direction of the policy change, and show that marginal policy effects are fundamentally easier to identify and to estimate than conventional treatment parameters. We develop the connection between marginal policy effects and the average effect of treatment for persons on the margin of indifference between participation in treatment and nonparticipation, and use this connection to analyze both parameters. We apply our analysis to estimate the effect of marginal changes in tuition on the return to going to college.

This paper estimates marginal returns to college for individuals induced to enroll in college by different marginal policy changes. The recent instrumental variables literature seeks to estimate this parameter, but in general it does so only under strong assumptions that are tested and found wanting. We show how to utilize economic theory and local instrumental variables estimators to estimate the effect of marginal policy changes. Our empirical analysis shows that returns are higher for individuals with values of unobservables that make them more likely to attend college. We contrast our estimates with IV estimates of the return to schooling.

We assigned two cohorts of kindergarten students, totaling more than 24,000 children, to teachers within schools with a rule that is as good as random. We collected data on children at the beginning of the school year and applied 12 tests of math, language, and executive function (EF) at the end of the year. All teachers were filmed teaching for a full day, and the videos were coded using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (or CLASS). We find substantial classroom effects: A 1 standard deviation increase in classroom quality results in 0.11, 0.11, and 0.07 standard deviation higher test scores in language, math, and EF, respectively. Teacher behaviors, as measured by the CLASS, are associated with higher test scores. Parents recognize better teachers, but do not change their behaviors appreciably to take account of differences in teacher quality.

Using unique data from Pakistan, we estimate a model of demand for differentiated products in 112 rural education markets with significant choice among public and private schools. Families are willing to pay substantially for reductions in distance to school, but, in contrast, price elasticities are low. Using the demand estimates, we show that the existence of a low-fee private school market is of great value for households in our sample, reaching 2% to 7% of annual per capita expenditure for those choosing private schools.

We study a change in maternity leave entitlements in Norway. Mothers giving birth before July 1, 1977, were eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave, while those giving birth after that date were entitled to 4 months of paid leave and 12 months of unpaid leave. The increased time spent with the child led to a 2 percentage point decline in high school dropout rates and a 5 percent increase in wages at age 30. These effects were larger for the children of mothers who, in the absence of the reform, would have taken very low levels of unpaid leave.

We extend the standard intergenerational mobility literature by examining the relationship between adult outcomes of children and the timing of parental income during their childhood years, using data from Norway. We find first that, conditional on permanent household income, the child’s human capital is higher in households where income is balanced between the early childhood and late childhood years than in households with a more imbalanced income profile. Second, compared to that in the early and late periods of childhood, income in the middle period has relatively low productivity.

We evaluate an intervention targeting early life nutrition and well-being for households in extreme poverty in Northern Nigeria. The intervention leads to large and sustained improvements in children’s anthropometric and health outcomes, including an 8 percent reduction in stunting 4 years, post-intervention. These impacts are partly driven by information-related channels. However, the certain and substantial flow of cash transfers is also key. They induce positive labor supply responses among women, and enables them to undertake productive investments in livestock. These provide protein rich diets for children, and generate higher household earnings streams long after the cash transfers expire.