Effects of Class-Size Reduction on Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills

Hirotake Ito, Makiko Nakamuro and Shintaro Yamaguchi

Discussion papers from Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)

Abstract: We estimate the effects of class-size reduction by exploiting exogenous variation caused by Maimonides' rule, which requires that the maximum class size be 40 students and classes be split when 41 or more students are enrolled. Our data cover all fourth to ninth graders in 1,064 public schools in an anonymous prefecture for three years. We find that the effects of class-size reduction on academic test scores are small on average, but slightly stronger for students not going to a private tutoring school. We find no evidence that small class size improves non-cognitive skills. Our substantive conclusion does not change when controlling for school fixed effects.

Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2019-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-neu and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eti:dpaper:19036

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