CHILDREN AND FAMILIES: AN ECONOMICS ANALYSIS-PROJECT 1

该提案描述了四个相互关联的研究影响的项目 教育程度及学校特色对儿童 结果。第一个项目将分析学校“质量”的影响， 按班级规模和其他可观察到的特征衡量， 辍学行为和大学招生决策。分析 将基于高中及以后的数据集和1988年全国 教育纵向调查。第二个项目将调查 学校质量对测试成绩的影响。我们将 建立一个1970- 1992年国家级观测数据库 包括SAT分数、学生特点和学校质量 措施该项目的一个关键方面将是规范和 测试模型的国家平均测试成绩是一致的， 个人成就和测试参与的适当模型。的 第三个项目将使用最近的随机实验的结果， 评价教育生产中使用的评价方法 功能文学我们已经从一个大规模的控制数据， 随机分配小学学生和教师的实验 1985年在田纳西州的不同规模的班级。以前的研究表明， 实验发现，小班学生的平均测试成绩较高， 成绩.我们将把实验的结果与 非实验性方法应用于类似的学生群体 他们写了同样的标准化测试，以了解是否使用的方法， 传统的观察性研究可以正确识别 考试成绩和班级规模之间的关系。重点将是 利用社会实验来测试识别限制， 在非实验性的情况下。最后一个项目将研究 学校资源对学生日后收入的影响。这 研究将使用1990年人口普查微观数据文件， 作者的分析。通过汇集大量样本， 根据1980年和1990年的人口普查，我们可以分离出学校质量变化的作用 在过去十年中，教育的可衡量“回报”上升， 并比较早期和晚期队列的学校质量的影响， 工人我们还将探讨非线性规格的影响， 收入、教育和学校质量的关系。

This proposal describes four inter-related projects that study the effects of educational attainment and school characteristics on children's outcomes. The first project will analyze the effects of school "quality", measured by class size and other observable characteristics, on high school drop out behavior and college enrollment decisions. The analysis will be based on the High School and Beyond data set and the 1988 National Educational Longitudinal Survey. The second project will investigate the effect of school quality on measured test score performance. We will develop a data base of state-level observations for the 1970-92 period that includes SAT scores, student characteristics, and school quality measures. A key aspect of the project will be the specification and testing of models for state average test scores that are consistent with appropriate models for individual achievement and test participation. The third project will use the results of a recent randomized experiment to evaluate the evaluation methods used in the educational production function literature. We have obtained data from a large-scale controlled experiment that randomly assigned elementary-school students and teachers to different size classes in Tennessee in 1985. Previous studies of this experiment find that students in smaller classes had higher average test scores. We will contrast the results of the experiment with results from non-experimental methodologies applied to a similar population of students who wrote the same standardized test, to learn whether the methods used in traditional observational studies can correctly identify the true relationship between test scores and class size. The emphasis will be on exploiting the social experiment to test identifying restrictions that are imposed in non-experimental situations. The final project will study the effect of school resources on the subsequent earnings of students. This study will use 1990 Census microdata files to update and extend earlier analyses by the authors. By pooling the large samples available in the 1980 and 1990 Censuses we can isolate the role of changing school quality in the rise in the measured "return" to education over the past decade, and compare the effects of school quality for earlier and later cohorts of workers. We will also explore the impact of nonlinear specifications of the earnings, education, and school quality relationships.