Policy, Politics, and Governance
Does a successful randomized experiment lead to successful policy? Project Challenge and what happened in Tennessee after Project STAR
Evidence-based policy is the practice of basing policy decisions on rigorous research evidence, such as randomized experiments. But it is unclear how often evidence-based decisions produce more effective policy. We evaluate an evidence-based policy implemented in 1989-93, after the state of… more →
The Next Generation of State Reforms to Improve their Lowest Performing Schools: An Evaluation of North Carolina’s School Transformation Initiative
In contrast to prior federally mandated school reforms, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allows states more discretion in reforming their lowest performing schools, removes requirements to disrupt the status quo, and does not allocate substantial additional funds. Using a regression… more →
Does achievement rise fastest with school choice, school resources, or family resources? Chile from 2002 to 2013
Debates in education policy draw on different theories about how to raise children’s achievement. The school competition theory holds that achievement rises when families can choose among competing schools. The school resource theory holds that achievement rises with school… more →
The Effect of Reduced Student Loan Borrowing on Academic Performance and Default: Evidence from a Loan Counseling Experiment
Student loan borrowing for higher education has emerged as a top policy concern. Policy makers at the institutional, state, and federal levels have pursued a variety of strategies to inform students about loan origination processes and how much a student has cumulatively borrowed, and to provide… more →
School Boards and Education Production: Evidence from Randomized Ballot Order
We examine the causal influence of educators elected to the school board on local education production. The key empirical challenge is that school board composition is endogenously determined through the electoral process. To overcome this, we develop a novel research design that leverages… more →
Spillover Impacts on Education from Employment Guarantees
Programs that provide lower-skill employment are a popular anti-poverty strategy in developing countries, with India's employment-guarantee program (MGNREGA) employing adults in 23% of Indian households. A potential concern is that guaranteeing lower-skill employment opportunities may… more →
Peeking into the Black Box of School Turnaround: A Formal Test of Mediators and Suppressors
A growing body of research evaluates the effects of turnaround on chronically low-performing schools. We extend this research to formally test factors that either mediate or suppress the effects of two turnaround initiatives in Tennessee: the Achievement School District (ASD) and local… more →
Do Health Insurance Mandates Spillover to Education? Evidence from Michigan’s Autism Insurance Mandate
Social programs and mandates are usually studied in isolation even though they often interact closely with each other. Given the immense recent changes to health insurance systems, there is much potential for spillover effects to other systems in which health plays a large role. In this study,… more →
Government Privatization and Political Participation: The Case of Charter Schools
Governments around the world have privatized public services in the name of efficiency and citizen empowerment, but some argue that privatization could also affect citizen participation in democratic governance. We explore this possibility by estimating the impact of charter schools (which are… more →