Estimating Treatment Effects from Contaminated Multi-Period Education Experiments: The Dynamic Impacts of Class Size Reductions

Weili Ding and Steven Lehrer ()

CLSRN Working Papers from UBC Department of Economics

Abstract: 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 class in all cognitive subject areas in kindergarten and the first grade. We do not find any statistically significant dynamic benefits from continuous treatment versus never attending small classes following grade one. Finally, statistical tests support accounting for both selective attrition and noncompliance with treatment assignment.

Keywords: Dynamic treatment effects; contaminated experiments; class size; education production; attrition; non-compliance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 C31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
Date: Written

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Related works:
Working Paper: Estimating Treatment Effects from Contaminated Multi-Period Education Experiments: The Dynamic Impacts of Class Size Reductions (2009)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2009-43

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