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Using Experimental Economics to Measure the Effects of a Natural Educational Experiment on Altruism

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Author Info
Eric Bettinger
Robert Slonim

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Abstract

Economic research examining how educational intervention programs affect primary and secondary schooling focuses largely on test scores although the interventions can affect many other outcomes. This paper examines how an educational intervention, a voucher program, affected students' altruism. The voucher program used a lottery to allocate scholarships among low-income applicant families with children in K-8th grade. By exploiting the lottery to identify the voucher effects, and using experimental economic methods, we measure the effects of the intervention on children's altruism. We also measure the voucher program's effects on parents' altruism and several academic outcomes including test scores. We find that the educational intervention positively affects students' altruism towards charitable organizations but not towards their peers. We fail to find statistically significant effects of the vouchers on parents' altruism or test scores.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11725.

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Date of creation: Oct 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11725

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I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments

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  1. Messer, Dolores & Wolter, Stefan, 2009. "Money Matters: Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Field Experiment with Vouchers for Adult Training," IZA Discussion Papers 4017, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  2. Xin Meng & Jim Ryan, 2007. "Does a Food for Education Program Affect School Outcomes? The Bangladesh Case," IZA Discussion Papers 2557, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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