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(Non)Randomization: A Theory of Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of School Quality

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Abstract

In centralized school admissions systems, rationing at oversubscribed schools often uses lotteries in addition to preferences. This partly random assignment is used by empirical researchers to identify the effect of entering a school on outcomes like test scores. This paper formally studies if the two most popular empirical research designs successfully extract a random assignment. For a class of data-generating mechanisms containing those used in practice, I show: One research design extracts a random assignment under a mechanism if and almost only if the mechanism is strategy-proof for schools. In contrast, the other research design does not necessarily extract a random assignment under any mechanism.

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  • Yusuki Narita, 2016. "(Non)Randomization: A Theory of Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of School Quality," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2056, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2056
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    Cited by:

    1. Yusuke Narita, 2018. "Experiment-as-Market: Incorporating Welfare into Randomized Controlled Trials," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2127r, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised May 2019.

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    Keywords

    Matching Market Design; Natural Experiment; Program Evaluation; Random Assignment; Quasi-Experimental Research Design; School Eectiveness;
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