IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v23y2013icp57-65.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The surprising effect of larger class sizes: Evidence using two identification strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Denny, Kevin
  • Oppedisano, Veruska

Abstract

This paper estimates the marginal effect of class size on educational attainment of high school students. We control for the potential endogeneity of class size in two ways using a conventional instrumental variable approach, based on changes in cohort size, and an alternative method where identification is based on restrictions on higher moments. The data is drawn from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) collected in 2003 for the United States and the United Kingdom. Using either method or the two in conjunction leads to the conclusion that increases in class size lead to improvements in student's mathematics scores. Only the results for the United Kingdom are statistically significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Denny, Kevin & Oppedisano, Veruska, 2013. "The surprising effect of larger class sizes: Evidence using two identification strategies," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 57-65.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:23:y:2013:i:c:p:57-65
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2013.04.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537113000468
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2013.04.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    2. Wo[ss]mann, Ludger & West, Martin, 2006. "Class-size effects in school systems around the world: Evidence from between-grade variation in TIMSS," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 695-736, April.
    3. Clive R. Belfield & Inas Rashad Kelly, 2012. "The Benefits of Breast Feeding across the Early Years of Childhood," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(3), pages 251-277.
    4. Anne Case & Angus Deaton, 1999. "School Inputs and Educational Outcomes in South Africa," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 1047-1084.
    5. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Nathaniel Hilger & Emmanuel Saez & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach & Danny Yagan, 2011. "How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project Star," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1593-1660.
    6. Jesse Levin, 2001. "For whom the reductions count: A quantile regression analysis of class size and peer effects on scholastic achievement," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 221-246.
    7. Claire Crawford & Lorraine Dearden & Costas Meghir, 2010. "When you are born matters: the impact of date of birth on educational outcomes in England," IFS Working Papers W10/06, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    8. Feinstein, Leon & Symons, James, 1999. "Attainment in Secondary School," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 51(2), pages 300-321, April.
    9. Christian Dustmann & Najma Rajah & Arthur van Soest, 2003. "Class Size, Education, and Wages," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 99-120, February.
    10. Rosalind Levacic & Anna Vignoles, 2002. "Researching the Links between School Resources and Student Outcomes in the UK: A Review of Issues and Evidence," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 313-331.
    11. Alan B. Krueger, 2003. "Economic Considerations and Class Size," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 34-63, February.
    12. Datar, Ashlesha & Mason, Bryce, 2008. "Do reductions in class size "crowd out" parental investment in education?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 712-723, December.
    13. Alan B. Krueger, 1999. "Experimental Estimates of Education Production Functions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 497-532.
    14. Lorraine Dearden & Javier Ferri & Costas Meghir, 2002. "The Effect Of School Quality On Educational Attainment And Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 1-20, February.
    15. Simone Dobbelsteen & Jesse Levin & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2002. "The causal effect of class size on scholastic achievement: distinguishing the pure class size effect from the effect of changes in class composition," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(1), pages 17-38, February.
    16. Akerhielm, Karen, 1995. "Does class size matter?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 229-241, September.
    17. Joshua D. Angrist & Victor Lavy, 1999. "Using Maimonides' Rule to Estimate the Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 533-575.
    18. Arthur Lewbel, 2012. "Using Heteroscedasticity to Identify and Estimate Mismeasured and Endogenous Regressor Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 67-80.
    19. Jackson, Erika & Page, Marianne E., 2013. "Estimating the distributional effects of education reforms: A look at Project STAR," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 92-103.
    20. Eric A. Hanushek, "undated". "The Evidence on Class Size," Wallis Working Papers WP10, University of Rochester - Wallis Institute of Political Economy.
    21. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2000. "The Effects of Class Size on Student Achievement: New Evidence from Population Variation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1239-1285.
    22. Roger Klein & Francis Vella, 2009. "Estimating the Return to Endogenous Schooling Decisions via Conditional Second Moments," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(4).
    23. Joseph J. Sabia, 2007. "The Effect of Body Weight on Adolescent Academic Performance," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(4), pages 871-900, April.
    24. Eric A. Hanushek, 2003. "The Failure of Input-Based Schooling Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 64-98, February.
    25. Roberto Rigobon, 2003. "Identification Through Heteroskedasticity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 777-792, November.
    26. Chingos, Matthew M., 2012. "The impact of a universal class-size reduction policy: Evidence from Florida's statewide mandate," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 543-562.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ludger Wößmann, 2003. "European education production functions: what makes a difference for student achievement in Europe?," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 190, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    2. Gary-Bobo, Robert J. & Mahjoub, Mohamed Badrane, 2006. "Estimation of Class-Size Effects, Using 'Maimonides' Rule': The Case of French Junior High Schools," CEPR Discussion Papers 5754, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. West, Martin R. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2006. "Which school systems sort weaker students into smaller classes? International evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 944-968, December.
    4. Matthew M. Chingos & Kenneth A. Couch, 2013. "Class Size and Student Outcomes: Research and Policy Implications," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(2), pages 411-438, March.
    5. Argaw, Bethlehem A. & Puhani, Patrick A., 2018. "Does class size matter for school tracking outcomes after elementary school? Quasi-experimental evidence using administrative panel data from Germany," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 48-57.
    6. Ma, Lingjie & Koenker, Roger, 2006. "Quantile regression methods for recursive structural equation models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 471-506, October.
    7. Marie Connolly & Catherine Haeck, 2018. "Le lien entre la taille des classes et les compétences cognitives et non cognitives," CIRANO Project Reports 2018rp-18, CIRANO.
    8. Margaret Stevens & Kathryn Graddy, 2003. "The Impact of School Inputs on Student Performance: An Empirical Study of Private Schools in the United Kingdom," Economics Series Working Papers 146, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Stevens, Margaret & Graddy, Kathryn, 2003. "The Impact of School Inputs on Student Performance: An Empirical Study of Private Schools in the UK," CEPR Discussion Papers 3776, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Stephen Gibbons & Sandra McNally, 2013. "The Effects of Resources Across School Phases: A Summary of Recent Evidence," CEP Discussion Papers dp1226, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Maximilian Bach & Stephan Sievert, 2019. "Birth Cohort Size Variation and the Estimation of Class Size Effects," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1817, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Christopher Jepsen, 2015. "Class size: Does it matter for student achievement?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 190-190, September.
    13. Peter Fredriksson & Björn Öckert & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2013. "Long-Term Effects of Class Size," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(1), pages 249-285.
    14. Justman, Moshe, 2018. "Randomized controlled trials informing public policy: Lessons from project STAR and class size reduction," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 167-174.
    15. Simone Balestra & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2014. "Heterogeneous effects of pupil-to-teacher ratio policies - A look at class size reduction and teacher aide," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0102, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised Apr 2017.
    16. Gundlach, Erich & Wößmann, Ludger, . "Bildungsressourcen, Bildungsinstitutionen und Bildungsqualität: Makroökonomische Relevanz und mikroökonomische Evidenz," Chapters in Economics,, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    17. Masakazu Hojo, 2011. "Education Production Function and Class-Size Effects in Japanese Public Schools," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd11-194, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    18. Wo[ss]mann, Ludger & West, Martin, 2006. "Class-size effects in school systems around the world: Evidence from between-grade variation in TIMSS," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 695-736, April.
    19. Hægeland, Torbjørn & Raaum, Oddbjørn & Salvanes, Kjell G., 2012. "Pennies from heaven? Using exogenous tax variation to identify effects of school resources on pupil achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 601-614.
    20. Ammermuller, Andreas & Heijke, Hans & Wo[ss]mann, Ludger, 2005. "Schooling quality in Eastern Europe: Educational production during transition," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 579-599, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Class sizes; Educational production; Endogeneity; Instrumental variables;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:23:y:2013:i:c:p:57-65. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.