Search and Filter
Human capital
Success Begets Success: The Dynamic Treatment Effects of Financial Aid Tournaments
Financial aid programs in higher education vary widely in design, including how aid is structured and the timing of provision. This paper studies the impact of financial aid provided as a repeated tournament and its dynamic treatment effects. Pooling administrative data that captures 32% of all… more →
Meeting People Where They Are: Experimental Evidence on Embedded Supports, Service Use, and Educational Outcomes
Many public services suffer from persistently low take-up despite high potential returns. A growing body of evidence suggests that information alone does little to close this gap; instead, hassle costs and default access points may be binding constraints on utilization. We test whether… more →
Does Coursework Matter? Uncovering the Role of Skills in the Returns to College
The continuing shift of the U.S. economy toward a high-skill base has increased the demand for college-educated workers. To understand how higher education prepares students for this evolving economy, a large body of literature in labor economics has focused on the causes and consequences of… more →
The Anatomy of a High-Return Question: Text, Skills, and the Economics of Achievement Measurement
Standardized test scores aggregate item (question) responses into a single scalar, collapsing distinct skills into an undifferentiated measure of proficiency. Which of these component skills matter most for long-run economic outcomes is a question that aggregate scores cannot answer. We develop… more →
A Dynamic Model of the Economic Returns to Adolescent Social Skills
Topics: Families and CommunitiesSocial-skill formation during adolescence depends on peer environments, but those environments are equilibrium outcomes shaped by individual choices. To account for this endogeneity, we develop and estimate a dynamic model in which parents invest in adolescents, adolescents choose whether to… more →
The Effects of Capped Piece-Rate Teacher Bonuses: Evidence from Advanced Placement
I study a proficiency-based incentive program that rewards Advanced Placement (AP) teachers a piece-rate for each student scoring 3 or higher on the standardized exam. Using student-course-level administrative data and exploiting both withinand across-teacher variation, I find the program… more →
The legacy of Plyler v. Doe: A critical window of inclusion
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThis study examines whether the 1982 Plyler v. Doe Supreme Court decision increased school participation among Latino K–12 students likely to be undocumented in Texas. The analysis asks whether removing tuition and enrollment barriers changed participation patterns relative to comparable states… more →
Geographic and Community Influences on College Savings: Evidence from the Universe of Pennsylvania 529 Account Holders
Topics: Families and CommunitiesFamilies’ college savings behaviors are important determinants of students’ postsecondary enrollment and degree attainment. While prior work has examined how economic and sociological aspects of families shape savings behaviors, no study has examined how geographic or community-level factors… more →
Cheapskin Effects? The Heterogeneous Value of Industry-Recognized Certificates Earned by High School Students
Topics: Student LearningHuman capital theory and signaling models posit that educational credentials convey information about workers’ skills, producing discrete labor market returns beyond years of schooling. While extensive evidence documents these “sheepskin effects” for degrees, far less is known about industry-… more →
Transitioning Teacher Talent: An Ethnoracial Descriptive Portrait of the Paraprofessional-to-Teacher Pipeline in New York City Public Schools
Districts nationwide seek to diversify the educator workforce, yet pathways for paraprofessionals—typically more ethnoracially and linguistically diverse than the general teacher pipeline—remain understudied. Using administrative data from New York City Public Schools (NYCPS), this study… more →
The Economics of Age at School Entry: Insights from Evidence and Methods
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThis article reviews the growing literature on age at school entry and its effects across the life course. Age at school entry affects a broad range of outcomes, including education, labor-market performance, health, social relationships, and family formation. We synthesize the evidence using a… more →
The Effect of Air Pollution on Student Achievement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence
Topics: Student LearningAir pollution is one of the most pressing global public health challenges of the 21st century. This article presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of the best available evidence of the effect of air pollution on student achievement. A meta-analysis of 28 causal studies around the world… more →
A Longitudinal Study of External Contract Teacher Employment in Washington State School Districts
This study examines the phenomenon of external teacher contracting in Washington State schools. Using administrative data, we analyze shifting patterns of employment among external contract teachers. External contract teachers now represent a significant portion of the workforce in a few… more →
Childhood Interventions and Life Course Development
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags: Early childhood education, Elementary schools, High schools, Human capital, Returns to education and skillsA paradox has perplexed researchers studying childhood interventions: although program impacts on children’s skills often fade, some interventions have nonetheless produced long-run impacts on adult outcomes. Existing developmental theory does not provide a straightforward explanation. The… more →
More Often or Longer? The Effects of the Academic Schedule on Postsecondary Academic Outcomes
Tags: Human capital, School schedulesOne of the most common scheduling decisions in higher education is the determination of biweekly or triweekly classes. On the surface, these two formats are equivalent in terms of the number of minutes in a course (75 minutes twice a week or 50 minutes three times a week). However, the two… more →
Does State-Mandated Third-Grade Reading Retention Policy Improve Achievement? Evidence from a Staggered-Adoption Difference-in-Differences Design
Topics: Student LearningThis paper investigates whether the state-mandated third-grade reading retention policy autonomously enhances student achievement or depends on broader literacy reforms. Using district-level data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (2010–2019), I employ a staggered-adoption Difference-in-… more →
Do Test Scores Misrepresent Test Results? An Item-by-Item Analysis
Much of the data collected in education is effectively thrown away. Students answer individual test questions, but administrators and researchers only see aggregate performance. All the item-level data are lost. Ex ante it is not clear this destroys much useful information, since the aggregate… more →
Labor Market Strength and Declining Community College Enrollment
Tags: Career and technical education, College readiness, Higher education, Human capital, Returns to education and skillsDeclining U.S. college enrollments have triggered questions about the health of the postsecondary sector. Using institution-level data, we make four points. First, such declines are driven not by the four-year sector but by two-year community colleges, which have apparently shrunk by over 30%… more →
Higher Education as Regional Development: Labor Market Impacts of Nigeria’s 2011 Federal University Expansion
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThis paper examines the causal impact of higher education expansion on regional labor markets and human capital development. Exploiting the 2011 establishment of nine federal universities across previously underserved Nigerian states, we implement a difference-in-differences approach to analyze… more →
Does Expanding Access to High Quality Technical Education Induce Participation and Improve Outcomes?
Over the last 15 years, Career and Technical Education (CTE) has been changing as schools have aimed to better meet workforce needs and diversify pathways into higher education and the workforce. This study provides the first known causal evidence on the impact of CTE program expansion in U.S.… more →