Public Economics Commons^™

Price Elasticity Of Expenditure Across Health Care Services, Fabian Duarte

Fabian Duarte

Policymakers in countries around the world are faced with rising health care costs and are debating ways to reform health care to reduce expenditures. Estimates of price elasticity of expenditure are a key component for predicting expenditures under alternative policies. Using unique individual-level data compiled from administrative records from the Chilean private health insurance market, I estimate the price elasticity of expenditures across a variety of health care services. I find elasticities that range between zero for the most acute service (appendectomy) and −2.08 for the most elective (psychologist visit). Moreover, the results show that at least one third of …

Work Incentives And The Food Stamp Program, Hilary Hoynes, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

Labor supply theory makes strong predictions about how the introduction or expansion of a social welfare program impacts work effort. Although there is a large literature on the work incentive effects of AFDC and the EITC, relatively little is known about the work incentive effects of the Food Stamp Program and none of the existing literature is based on quasi-experimental methods. We use the cross-county introduction of the program in the 1960s and 1970s to estimate the impact of the program on the extensive and intensive margins of labor supply, earnings, and family cash income. Consistent with theory, we find …

How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence From Project Star, Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Nathaniel Hilger, Emmanuel Saez, Diane Schanzenbach, Danny Yagan

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

In Project STAR, 11,571 students in Tennessee and their teachers were randomly assigned to classrooms within their schools from kindergarten to third grade. This article evaluates the long-term impacts of STAR by linking the experimental data to administrative records. We first demonstrate that kindergarten test scores are highly correlated with outcomes such as earnings at age 27, college attendance, home ownership, and retirement savings. We then document four sets of experimental impacts. First, students in small classes are significantly more likely to attend college and exhibit improvements on other outcomes. Class size does not have a significant effect on earnings …

Is Being In School Better? The Impact Of School On Children's Bmi When Starting Age Is Endogenous, Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, Elizabeth Cascio, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

In this paper, we investigate the impact of attending school on body weight and obesity using a regression-discontinuity design. As is the case with academic outcomes, school exposure is related to unobserved determinants of weight outcomes because some families choose to have their child start school late (or early). If one does not account for this endogeneity, it appears that an additional year of school exposure results in a greater BMI and a higher probability of being overweight or obese. When we compare the weight outcomes of similar age children with one versus two years of school exposure due to …

Inside The War On Poverty: The Impact Of Food Stamps On Birth Outcomes, Douglas Almond, Hilary Hoynes, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

This paper evaluates the health impacts of a signature initiative of the War on Poverty: the introduction of the modern Food Stamp Program (FSP). Using variation in the month FSP began operating in each U.S. county, we find that pregnancies exposed to FSP three months prior to birth yielded deliveries with increased birth weight, with the largest gains at the lowest birth weights. We also find small but statistically insignificant improvements in neonatal mortality. We conclude that the sizable increase in income from FSP improved birth outcomes for both whites and African Americans, with larger impacts for African American mothers.

Who Would Be Affected By Soda Taxes?, Diane Schanzenbach, Leslie Mcgranahan

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

In 2009–10, 17 states considered expanding taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) as a potential source of funds and a means to curb obesity. This article examines the various types of soda tax proposals, the underlying economic theory, and the anticipated impact of the proposed taxes on different population groups.

Adequate (Or Adipose?) Yearly Progress: Assessing The Effect Of "No Child Left Behind" On Children's Obesity, Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

This paper investigates how accountability pressures under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) may affect children’s rate of overweight. Schools facing increased pressures to produce academic outcomes may reallocate their efforts in ways that have unintended consequences for children’s health. For example, schools may cut back on recess and physical education in favor of increasing time on tested subjects. To examine the impact of school accountability programs, we create a unique panel data set of schools in Arkansas that allows us to test the impact of NCLB rules on students’ weight outcomes. Our main approach is to consider schools to be …

Experimental Evidence On The Effect Of Childhood Investments On Postsecondary Attainment And Degree Completion, Susan Dynarski, Joshua Hyman, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

This paper examines the effect of early childhood investments on college enrollment and degree completion. We use the random assignment in the Project STAR experiment to estimate the effect of smaller classes in primary school on college entry, college choice, and degree completion. We improve on existing work in this area with unusually detailed data on college enrollment spells and the previously unexplored outcome of college degree completion. We find that assignment to a small class increases the probability of attending college by 2.7 percentage points, with effects more than twice as large among blacks. Among those with the lowest …

Left Behind By Design: Proficiency Counts And Test-Based Accountability, Derek Neal, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

We show that within the Chicago Public Schools, both the introduction of NCLB in 2002 and the introduction of similar district-level reforms in 1996 generated noteworthy increases in reading and math scores among students in the middle of the achievement distribution but not among the least academically advantaged students. The stringency of proficiency requirements varied among the programs implemented for different grades in different years, and our results suggest that changes in proficiency requirements induce teachers to shift more attention to students who are near the current proficiency standard.

Consumption Responses To In-Kind Transfers: Evidence From The Introduction Of The Food Stamp Program, Hilary Hoynes, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

Economists have strong theoretical predictions about how in-kind transfers, such as providing vouchers for food, impact consumption. Despite the prominence of the theory, there is little empirical work on responses to in-kind transfers, and most existing work fails to support the canonical theoretical model. We employ difference-indifference methods to estimate the impact of program introduction on food spending. Consistent with predictions, we find that food stamps reduce out-of-pocket food spending and increase overall food expenditures. We also find that households are inframarginal and respond similarly to one dollar in cash income and one dollar in food stamps.

Time Use And Food Consumption, Marianne Bertrand, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

No abstract provided.

Do School Lunches Contribute To Childhood Obesity?, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

This paper assesses whether school lunches contribute to childhood obesity. I employ two methods to isolate the causal impact of school lunches on obesity. First, using panel data, I find that children who consume school lunches are more likely to be obese than those who brown bag their lunches even though they enter kindergarten with the same obesity rates. Second, I leverage the sharp discontinuity in eligibility for reduced-price lunch to compare children just above and just below the eligibility cutoff. Students are more likely to be obese, and weigh more if they are income-eligible for reduced price school lunches.

“Selling Licenses For A Process Innovation: The Impact Of The Product Market On The Selling Mechanism, Aniruddha Bagchi

Aniruddha Bagchi

First In The Class? Age And The Education Production Function, Diane Schanzenbach, Elizabeth Cascio

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

Older children outperform younger children in a school-entry cohort well into their school careers. The existing literature has provided little insight into the causes of this phenomenon, leaving open the possibility that school-entry age is zero-sum game, where relatively young students lose what relatively old students gain. In this paper, we estimate the effects of relative age using data from an experiment where children of the same biological age were randomly assigned to different classrooms at the start of school. We find no evidence that relative age impacts achievement in the population at large. However, disadvantaged children assigned to a …

What Have Researchers Learned From Project Star?, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

No abstract provided.

Resource And Peer Impacts On Girls' Academic Achievement: Evidence From A Randomized Experiment, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Attending A Small Class In The Early Grades On College-Test Taking And Middle School Test Results: Evidence From Project Star, Alan Krueger, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

This paper provides a long-term follow-up analysis of students who participated in the Tennessee STAR experiment. In this experiment, students and their teachers were randomly assigned to small, regular-size, or regular-size classes with a teacher aide in the first four years of school. We analyse the effect of past attendance in small classes on student test scores and whether they took the ACT or SAT college entrance exam. Attending a small class in the early grades is associated with an increased likelihood of taking a college-entrance exam, especially among minority students, and somewhat higher test scores.