The Production of Cognitive Achievement in Children: Home, School and Racial Test Score Gaps

Petra Todd and Kenneth I. Wolpin ()
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Kenneth I. Wolpin: Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania

PIER Working Paper Archive from Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: This paper studies the determinants of children’s scores on tests of cognitive achievement in math and reading. Using rich longitudinal data on test scores, home environments, and schools, we implement alternative specifications for the production function for achievement and test their assumptions. We do not find support for commonly used restrictive models that assume test scores depend only on contemporaneous inputs or that assume conditioning in a lagged score captures the effects of all past inputs. Instead, the results show that both contemporaneous and lagged inputs matter in the production of current achievement and that it is important to allow for unobserved child-specific endowment effects and endogeneity of inputs. Using a specification that incorporates these features, we analyze sources of test score gaps between black, white and Hispanic children. The estimated model captures key patterns in the data, such as the widening of minority-white test score gaps with age, which is most pronounced for black children.

Keywords: Education production function; racial test score gaps; school quality; child development and cognitive achievement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J15 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2004-04-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Production of Cognitive Achievement in Children: Home, School, and Racial Test Score Gaps (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pen:papers:04-019

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