The Long-Term Effects of Universal Preschool in Boston

We use admis­sions lot­ter­ies to esti­mate the effects of large-scale pub­lic preschool in Boston on col­lege-going, col­lege prepa­ra­tion, stan­dard­ized test scores, and behav­ioral out­comes. Preschool enroll­ment boosts col­lege atten­dance, as well as SAT test-tak­ing and high school grad­u­a­tion. Preschool also decreas­es sev­er­al dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures includ­ing juve­nile incar­cer­a­tion, but has no detectable impact on state achieve­ment test scores. An analy­sis of sub­groups shows that effects on col­lege enroll­ment, SAT-tak­ing, and dis­ci­pli­nary out­comes are larg­er for boys than for girls. Our find­ings illus­trate pos­si­bil­i­ties for large-scale mod­ern, pub­lic preschool and high­light the impor­tance of mea­sur­ing long-term and non-test score out­comes in eval­u­at­ing the effec­tive­ness of edu­ca­tion programs.

Authors
Guthrie Gray-Lobe, Parag Pathak, and Christopher Walters

Simple and Credible Value-Added Estimation Using Centralized Assignment

Many large urban school dis­tricts match stu­dents to schools using algo­rithms that incor­po­rate an ele­ment of ran­dom assign­ment. We intro­duce two sim­ple empir­i­cal strate­gies to har­ness this ran­dom­iza­tion for mea­sur­ing the causal effects of indi­vid­ual schools. In appli­ca­tions to data from Denver and New York City, we find that our mod­els yield high­ly reli­able school effec­tive­ness estimates. 

Authors
Joshua Angrist, Peter Hull, Parag Pathak, Christopher Walters

What prioritizing worse-off minority groups for COVID-19 vaccines means quantitatively: practical, legal, and ethical implications

Authors
Harald Schmidt, Utku Ünver, Michelle Williams, Parag Pathak,Tayfun Sönmez, and Lawrence Gostin

Marginal Effects of Merit Aid for Low-Income Students

Authors
Joshua Angrist, David Autor, Amanda Pallais

Do Parents Value School Effectiveness?

Authors
Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Parag A. Pathak, Jonathan Schellenberg, and Christopher R. Walters

Can Successful Schools Replicate? Scaling Up Boston’s Charter School Sector

Authors
Sarah Cohodes, Elizabeth Setren, Christopher Walters

Breaking Ties: Regression Discontinuity Design Meets Market Design

Authors
Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Joshua D. Angrist, Yusuke Narita, and Parag A. Pathak

The Impact of a STEM-Focused Summer Program on College and Major Choices Among Underserved High-Achievers

Authors
Silvia Robles

Fiscal and Education Spillovers from Charter School Expansion

Authors
Matt Ridley and Camille Terrier

How Well Do Structural Demand Models Work? Counterfactual Predictions in School Choice

Authors
Parag A. Pathak and Peng Shi