Econometric Methods for Causal Evaluation of Education Policies and Practices: A Non-Technical Guide

Martin Schlotter, Guido Schwerdt and Ludger Woessmann

No 2877, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Education policy-makers and practitioners want to know which policies and practices can best achieve their goals. But research that can inform evidence-based policy often requires complex methods to distinguish causation from accidental association. Avoiding econometric jargon and technical detail, this paper explains the main idea and intuition of leading empirical strategies devised to identify causal impacts and illustrates their use with real-world examples. It covers six evaluation methods: controlled experiments, lotteries of oversubscribed programs, instrumental variables, regression discontinuities, differences-indifferences, and panel-data techniques. Illustrating applications include evaluations of early-childhood interventions, voucher lotteries, funding programs for disadvantaged, and compulsory-school and tracking reforms.

Keywords: causal effects; education; policy evaluation; non-technical guide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C01 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp2877.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Econometric methods for causal evaluation of education policies and practices: a non-technical guide (2011)
Working Paper: Econometric methods for causal evaluation of education policies and practices: A non-technical guide (2011)
Working Paper: Econometric Methods for Causal Evaluation of Education Policies and Practices: A Non-Technical Guide (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2877

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().