Externalities in the Classroom: How Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Affect Everyone's Kids

Scott Carrell and Mark Hoekstra

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2010, vol. 2, issue 1, 211-28

Abstract: There is a widespread perception that externalities from troubled children are significant, though measuring them is difficult due to data and methodological limitations. We estimate the negative spillovers caused by children from troubled families by exploiting a unique dataset in which children's school records are matched to domestic violence cases. We find that children from troubled families significantly decrease the reading and math test scores of their peers and increase misbehavior in the classroom. The achievement spillovers are robust to within-family differences and when controlling for school-by-year effects, providing strong evidence that neither selection nor common shocks are driving the results. (JEL D62, I21, J12, J13, K42)

JEL-codes: D62 I21 J12 J13 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.2.1.211
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (293)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.2.1.211 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2009-0014_data.zip (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Externalities in the Classroom: How Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Affect Everyone's Kids (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:2:y:2010:i:1:p:211-28

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics is currently edited by Alexandre Mas

More articles in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().