Substitution and Dropout Bias in Social Experiments: A Study of an Influential Social Experiment

James Heckman, Neil Hohmann, Jeffrey Smith and Michael Khoo

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2000, vol. 115, issue 2, 651-694

Abstract: This paper considers the interpretation of evidence from social experiments when persons randomized out of a program being evaluated have good substitutes for it, and when persons randomized into a program drop out to pursue better alternatives. Using data from an experimental evaluation of a classroom training program, we document the empirical importance of control group substitution and treatment group dropping out. Evidence that one program is ineffective relative to close substitutes is not evidence that the type of service provided by all of the programs is ineffective, although that is the way experimental evidence is often interpreted.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (161)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1162/003355300554764 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Substitution and Dropout Bias in Social Experiments: A Study of an Influential Social Experiment (1998)
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:oup:qjecon:v:115:y:2000:i:2:p:651-694.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics is currently edited by Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan Nunn, Andrei Shleifer and Stefanie Stantcheva

More articles in The Quarterly Journal of Economics from President and Fellows of Harvard College
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().