DO STOCK RETURNS VARY WITH CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS? BUSH VS. GORE: THE FLORIDA RECOUNT

I examine the relation between campaign contributions and stock returns during the Florida recount period of the 2000 presidential elections. Using the full population of publicly traded firms, I find an economically significant positive (negative) relation between pre‐election campaign contributions to Bush (Gore) and stock returns during the 37‐day election recount period. This relation exists for both the level and partisanship of contributions, and exists incrementally at both the firm and industry levels. These relations are robust to several different specifications, including alternative event windows that exclude the potentially confounding House/Senate races. The firm‐level analysis is consistent with contributions being influence‐motivated.     

Accountability,incentives and behavior: the impact of high-stakes testing in the Chicago Public Schools

The recent federal education bill, No Child Left Behind, requires states to test students in grades 3 to 8 each year and to judge school performance on the basis of these test scores. While intended to maximize student learning, there is little empirical evidence about the effectiveness of such policies. This study examines the impact of an accountability policy implemented in the Chicago Public Schools in 1996–1997. Using a panel of student-level, administrative data, I find that math and reading achievement increased sharply following the introduction of the accountability policy, in comparison to both prior achievement trends in the district and to changes experienced by other large, urban districts in the mid-west. However, for younger students, the policy did not increase performance on a state-administered, low-stakes exam. An item-level analysis suggests that the observed achievement gains were driven by increases in test-specific skills and student effort. I also find that teachers responded strategically to the incentives along a variety of dimensions—by increasing special education placements, preemptively retaining students and substituting away from low-stakes subjects like science and social studies.     

Non-cognitive child outcomes and universal high quality child care

Exploiting a rich panel data child survey merged with administrative records along with a pseudo-experiment generating variation in the take-up of preschool across municipalities, we provide evidence of the effects on non-cognitive child outcomes of participating in large scale publicly provided universal preschool programs and family day care vis-à-vis home care. We find that, compared to home care, being enrolled in preschool at age three does not lead to significant differences in child outcomes at age seven no matter the gender or the mother's level of education. Family day care, on the other hand, seems to significantly deteriorate outcomes for boys whose mothers have a lower level of education. Finally, longer hours in non-parental care lead to poorer child outcomes.     

Middle school or junior high? How grade‐level configurations affect academic achievement

Does the grade‐level configuration of a school affect academic achievement? This research examines the effect of attending a middle/junior high school on academic outcomes in British Columbia, Canada, relative to attending a school from kindergarten through grade 8. Using an OLS strategy, I find that attending a middle/junior high school reduces grades 4 to 7 achievement gains in math and reading by 0.125–0.187 and 0.055–0.108, respectively. Similar‐sized estimates are found for math using a 2SLS strategy. Finally, large negative effects on grade 10 and grade 12 English exams are also found.     

How important are school principals in the production of student achievement?

As school leaders, principals can influence student achievement in a number of ways, such as hiring and firing of teachers, monitoring instruction and maintaining student discipline, among many others. We measure the effect of individual principals on gains in math and reading achievement between grades 4 and 7 using a value‐added framework. We estimate that a one standard deviation improvement in principal quality can boost student performance by 0.289 to 0.408 standard deviations in reading and math, while the principal at the 75th percentile improves scores by 0.170 to 0.193 relative to the median principal. Our results imply that isolating the most effective principals and allocating them accordingly between schools can have a significant positive effect on reducing achievement gaps.     

How accountability pressure on failing schools affects student achievement

Although an emerging body of evidence has shown that the threat of sanctions on low-performing schools can raise student test scores in the short run, the extent to which these test score improvements are due to schools' manipulation of the accountability system has remained uncertain. In this paper, I provide two new strands of evidence to evaluate the relative importance of educational reforms and gaming behavior in generating test score gains by threatened schools. First, using a regression discontinuity design that exploits Florida's system of imposing sanction threats on the basis of a cutoff level of performance, I estimate medium-run effects on student test scores from having attended a threatened elementary school. Threat-induced math improvements from elementary school largely persist at least through the first 1 to 2 years of middle school, while evidence for persistence of reading improvements is less consistent. Second, I analyze the effects of sanction threats on various features of educational production, and I find that sanction threats raise school spending on instructional technology, curricular development, and teacher training. Both strands of evidence are consistent with a predominant role for educational reforms in generating test score gains by threatened schools.     

Industrial actions in schools: strikes and student achievement

Many jurisdictions ban teacher strikes on the assumption that they negatively affect student achievement, but there is surprisingly little research on this question. The majority of existing studies make cross‐section comparisons of the achievement of students who do or do not experience a strike. They conclude that strikes do not have an impact. I present new estimates of this impact of strikes using an empirical strategy that controls for fixed student characteristics at the school cohort level, and a sample of industrial actions by teachers in the province of Ontario. The results indicate that teacher strikes in grades 5 or 6 have a negative, statistically significant impact on test score growth between grade 3 and grade 6. The largest impact is on math scores: 29% of the standard deviation of test scores across school/grade cohorts.     

LOST IN TRANSLATION? TEACHER TRAINING AND OUTCOMES IN HIGH SCHOOL ECONOMICS CLASSES

Using data from a 2006 survey of California high school economics classes, we assess the effects of teacher characteristics on student achievement. We estimate value‐added models of outcomes on multiple choice and essay exams, with matched classroom pairs for each teacher enabling random‐effects and fixed‐effects estimation. The results show a substantial impact of specialized teacher experience and college‐level coursework in economics. However, the latter is associated with higher scores on the multiple‐choice test and lower scores on the essay test, suggesting that a portion of teachers' content knowledge may be “lost in translation” when conveyed to their students. (JEL A21, I21)     

WHY DO CHARTER SCHOOLS FAIL? AN ANALYSIS OF CHARTER SCHOOL SURVIVAL IN NEW JERSEY

Charter school competition can only work as a policy to improve public education if schools that do not contribute to this goal are allowed to fail. We estimate survival regressions to assess the effects of various factors on the probability of school failure. We find that students' test scores are the most important determinant of survival: a one standard deviation increase reduces the probability of failure by 76%. Higher expenditures per student and a longer wait list result in smaller, but significant, reductions. Enrollment, average performance in the host district, and student demographics do not significantly affect school survival. (JEL I21, H75)     

GROWTH AND VARIABILITY OF SCHOOL DISTRICT INCOME TAX REVENUES: IS TAX BASE DIVERSIFICATION A GOOD IDEA FOR SCHOOL FINANCING?

School districts in Ohio have the option of diversifying their revenue base by adopting income taxes. Using a panel of Ohio school districts that adopted a local income tax from 1990 to 2008, we find that revenues are procyclical and fluctuate only mildly. The estimated short‐ and long‐run income elasticity of school district income tax revenues is 1.05 and 1.04, respectively. We also find that the school district tax base fully adjusts to its long‐run equilibrium within 2 years. Finally, we show that school district income tax adoption does not provide more stability to total school district tax revenues in the short or the long run. (JEL H71, H75)     

The effect of school capital investments on local housing markets and household sorting in California

In this paper, I investigate what effect school capital investments have on housing values and household location choice in the context of the Tiebout model. This research identifies an exogenous variation in school capital investments by exploiting the lottery allocation of entitlement to an interest-free construction bond among districts in California. Although the lottery is exogenous, additional non-lottery allocation complicates identification. This paper develops an empirical model based on sample selection methods in order to create a counterfactual state in which additional non-lottery allocation would not have existed. I find that receiving the interest-free construction bond increases school capital expenditure and housing values at the district level. I view the increase in housing values as the capitalization of school capital investments. I find little evidence for the effect of the interest-free construction bond on household sorting and student’s academic outcomes.     

Impact of Parental Resources on Student Outcomes Using Elementary School Data

This paper examines the use of parental volunteer hours in elementary schools in the state of Kentucky and assesses whether they improve student learning in math, reading, writing, science, and social studies. A unique annual school-level panel dataset was created of over 600 elementary schools from 2000 until 2017. This approach is novel because it permits investigation of the impact of parental involvement in schools through achievement distributions in each subject area. The findings suggest that use of parental volunteer hours tends to reduce the percentage of students at the low end of the achievement distribution and increases the percentage at the high end in many grades and across several subjects. No instances were identified of detrimental impacts. The research implications are that opportunities may exist for school districts to improve student outcomes through encouragement and increased use of parental involvement in schools.

     

DOES SPENDING MORE ON TOBACCO CONTROL PROGRAMS MAKE ECONOMIC SENSE? AN INCREMENTAL BENEFIT‐COST ANALYSIS USING PANEL DATA

This paper presents a benefit‐cost analysis of the ongoing, state‐level tobacco prevention and control programs in the United States. Using state‐level panel data for the years 1991–2007, the study applies several variants of econometric modeling approaches to estimate the state‐level tobacco demand. The paper finds a statistically significant evidence of a sustained and steadily increasing long‐run impact of the tobacco control program spending on cigarette demand in states. The study also shows that, if individual states follow the Best Practices funding guidelines, potential future annual benefits of the tobacco control program can be as high as 14–20 times the cost of program implementation. (JEL C2, H5, I1)     

Need,Merit and Politics in Multilateral Aid Allocation: A District‐level Analysis of World Bank Projects in India

We assess the targeting of foreign aid within recipient countries by employing Poisson estimations on the determinants of the World Bank's allocation of project aid at the district level in India. The evidence of needs‐based location choices is very weak as long as the poverty orientation of overall commitments is taken as the yardstick. It is only for some sectors that we find stronger indications of needs‐based allocation when combining sector‐specific commitments with corresponding measures of need. The evidence for a merit‐based allocation of World Bank aid is even weaker. We typically do not find evidence that aid allocation is affected by political patronage at the state or district level. However, the World Bank prefers districts where foreign direct investors may benefit from projects related to infrastructure.     

Is India Shining?

The popular perception about economic reforms having benefitted only the richer districts of India between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005 is investigated. Using the spatial dynamics of district‐level per‐capita income it was found that income distribution did not change between the years examined. It is argued that this is because of per‐capita income across districts being spatially positively correlated. Physical infrastructure, human capital, and factories are identified as factors responsible for increase in income for both the rich as well as the poor districts. Infrastructure, physical or social, is a key component of growth in India. A policy impact analysis shows development of better drainage and potable water systems has a large impact on income. For the year 2001/02, it was found that for every 1% increase in closed drainage system and potable water, district‐level median income increases by 1.39% and 0.21%, respectively.     

The Effect of the Adoption of a Pro‐Women Domestic Violence Policy on Dowry Violence: Empirical Evidence from India

Dowry violence against women in India is among the highest in the world. In 2005, India enacted the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA) to help female victims of domestic violence. I develop a model of domestic violence and evaluate the effects of the PWDVA on dowry violence. I estimate an empirical model of dowry violence using district level data from 2001–2012. I find that in the post‐policy period, the reporting rate of harassment for dowry has significantly increased in north and central India where female leadership is high. In these districts, dowry deaths have also declined significantly.     

The effects of spending on test pass rates: evidence from Michigan

This study uses data on standardized test scores from 1992 through 1998 at Michigan schools to determine the effects of spending on student performance. The years in the data set straddle 1994, when Michigan dramatically changed the way that K-12 schools are funded, and moved toward equalization of spending across schools. Focusing on pass rates for a fourth-grade math tests (the most complete and consistent data available for Michigan), I find that increases in spending have nontrivial, statistically significant effects on math test pass rates, and the effects are largest for schools with initially poor performance.     

The impact of charter school attendance on student performance

We employ a panel of individual student data on math and reading test performance for five cohorts of students in Texas to study the impact of charter school attendance. We control for school mobility effects and distinguish movement to a charter school from movement within and between traditional public school districts. We find students experience poor test score growth in their initial year in a charter school, but that this is followed by recovery in the subsequent years. Failure to account for this pattern may lead to potentially misleading estimates of the impact of charter attendance on student achievement. Students who remain in charters largely recover from the initial disruption within approximately 3 years, and there is weak evidence that there may be overall gains from charter attendance within this period. Furthermore, students who return to traditional public schools after just 1 or 2 years in a charter do not appear to suffer a lasting negative impact despite their poor average performance in their first year of charter attendance.     

Measuring Efficiency: A Comparison of Multilevel Modelling and Data Envelopment Analysis in the Context of Higher Education

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and multilevel modelling (MLM) are applied to a data set of 54,564 graduates from UK universities in 1993 to assess whether the choice of technique affects the measurement of universities’ performance. A methodology developed by Thanassoulis and Portela (2002; Education Economics, 10(2), pp. 183–207) allows each individual's DEA efficiency score to be decomposed into two components: one attributable to the university at which the student studied and the other attributable to the individual student. From the former component, a measure of each institution's teaching efficiency is derived and compared to the university effects from various multilevel models. The comparisons are made within four broad subjects: pure science, applied science, social science and arts. The results show that the rankings of universities derived from the DEA efficiencies which measure the universities’ own performance (i.e., having excluded the efforts of the individuals) are not strongly correlated with the university rankings derived from the university effects of the multilevel models. The data were also used to perform a university‐level DEA. The university efficiency scores derived from these DEAs are largely unrelated to the scores from the individual‐level DEAs, confirming a result from a smaller data set (Johnes, 2006a; European Journal of Operational Research, forthcoming). However, the university‐level DEAs provide efficiency scores which are generally strongly related to the university effects of the multilevel models.     

THE RELATIVE EFFICIENCY OF CHARTER SCHOOLS

ABSTRACT ** :  This analysis compares the technical efficiency of charter school primary and secondary campuses with that of comparable campuses in traditional Texas school districts. Charter schools are hybrids—publicly funded, but not required to meet all the state regulations releant for traditional schools. Student performance is measured using value added on standardized tests in reading and mathematics, and efficiency is measured using the input distance function. The analysis suggests that at least in Texas, charter schools are substantially more efficient than traditional public schools.