Credible School Value-Added with Undersubscribed School Lotteries
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rest_a_01149.pdf
Description
Published version
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744.74 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Angrist, Joshua
Hull, Peter
Pathak, Parag A
Walters, Christopher
Date Issued
2021
Journal
The Review of Economics and Statistics
Publisher
MIT Press - Journals
Citation
Angrist, Joshua, Hull, Peter, Pathak, Parag A and Walters, Christopher. 2021. "Credible School Value-Added with Undersubscribed School Lotteries." The Review of Economics and Statistics.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Abstract
We introduce two empirical strategies harnessing the randomness in school assignment mechanisms to measure school value-added. The first estimator controls for the probability of school assignment, treating take-up as ignorable. We test this assumption using randomness in assignments. The second approach uses assignments as instrumental variables (IVs) for low-dimensional models of value-added and forms empirical Bayes posteriors from these IV estimates. Both strategies solve the underidentification challenge arising from school undersubscription. Models controlling for assignment risk and lagged achievement in Denver and New York City yield reliable value-added estimates. Estimates from models with lower-quality achievement controls are improved by IV.
We introduce two empirical strategies harnessing the randomness in school assignment mechanisms to measure school value-added. The first estimator controls for the probability of school assignment, treating take-up as ignorable. We test this assumption using randomness in assignments. The second approach uses assignments as instrumental variables (IVs) for low-dimensional models of value-added and forms empirical Bayes posteriors from these IV estimates. Both strategies solve the underidentification challenge arising from school undersubscription. Models controlling for assignment risk and lagged achievement in Denver and New York City yield reliable value-added estimates. Estimates from models with lower-quality achievement controls are improved by IV.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1162/REST_A_01149
