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Estimating Treatment Effects from Contaminated Multiperiod Education Experiments: The Dynamic Impacts of Class Size Reductions

Weili Ding; Steven Lehrer

Queen's University

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2010

This paper introduces an empirical strategy to estimate dynamic treatment effects in randomized trials that provide treatment in multiple stages and in which various noncompliance problems arise, such as attrition and selective transitions between treatment and control groups. Our approach is applied to the highly influential four-year randomized class size study, Project STAR. We find benefits from attending small classes in all cognitive subject areas in kindergarten and first grade. We do not find any statistically significant dynamic benefits from continuous treatment versus never attending small classes following grade 1. Finally, statistical tests support accounting for both selective attrition and noncompliance with treatment assignment.

DOI
10.1162/rest.2009.11453
Volume
92 (1)
Pages
31-42
Language
en
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