How The Timing of Grade Retention Affects Outcomes: Identification and Estimation of Time-Varying Treatment Effects

Jane Fruehwirth, Salvador Navarro and Yuya Takahashi ()
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Yuya Takahashi: Department of Economics, University of Mannheim

No 2011-015, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: Increasingly, grade retention is viewed as an important alternative to social promotion, yet evidence to date is unable to disentangle how the effect of grade retention varies by abilities and over time. The key challenge is differential selection of students into retention across grades and by abilities. Because existing quasi-experimental methods cannot address this question, we develop a new strategy that is a hybrid between a control function and a generalization of the fixed effects approach. Applying our method to nationally-representative, longitudinal data, we find evidence of dynamic selection into retention and that the treatment effect of retention varies considerably across grades and unobservable abilities of students. Our strategy can be applied more broadly to many time-varying or multiple treatment settings.

Keywords: time-varying treatments; dynamic selection; grade retention; factor analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
Note: M
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Fruehw ... how-timing-grade.pdf First version, May 29, 2011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: How the Timing of Grade Retention Affects Outcomes: Identification and Estimation of Time-Varying Treatment Effects (2016)
Working Paper: How the Timing of Grade Retention Affects Outcomes: Identification and Estimation of Time-Varying Treatment Effects (2011)
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