AEAweb: Journal Article Full-Text Access
Note to Institutional Subscribers: If you normally access AEAweb journal content via your university or firm's subscription and receive this page, please click
here. The most likely causes of this are a recently changed IP address, a new subscription, or the renewal of a lapsed institutional subscription. This page will stop appearing on the next synchronisation of the document delivery and authentication systems.
You may also click here for pay-per-view, Athens login and other access options .
AEA Members, please click the button below to access the login form:
Chay, Kenneth Y.,
Patrick J. McEwan, and
Miguel Urquiola. 2005. "The Central Role of Noise in Evaluating Interventions That Use Test Scores to Rank Schools."
,
95(4): 1237-1258.
Show Article Details
DOI: 10.1257/0002828054825529
Abstract:Many programs reward or penalize schools based on students' average performance. Mean reversion is a potentially serious hindrance to the evaluation of such interventions. Chile's 900 Schools Program (P-900) allocated resources based on cutoffs in schools' mean test scores. This paper shows that transitory noise in average scores and mean reversion lead conventional estimation approaches to overstate the impacts of such programs. It further shows how a regression-discontinuity design can be used to control for reversion biases. It concludes that P-900 had significant effects on test score gains, albeit much smaller than is widely believed.
Additional links:
Data Availability |
Link to Appendix
Authors:
Chay, Kenneth Y.
McEwan, Patrick J.
Urquiola, Miguel
JEL Classifications:
:
None
If you are an AEA member and do not have an AEAweb login, please
click here.
If you would like to become an AEA member, please see our
membership page.
If you arrived at this page via a journal article link, you will be redirected to the pdf after successful login.
If your first login attempt fails, and you have recently signed up for access or have recently changed your password, you may need to wait a few moments and try again.
Please contact us at
notify@aeaweb.org with any problems or questions.
Contents of Current Issues
May 2013 AER
Spring 2013 JEP
May 2013 AEJ: Policy
May 2013 AEJ: Micro
April 2013 AEJ: Macro
April 2013 AEJ: Applied
March 2013 JEL
Virtual Field Journals
In the News:
The Huffington Post reports on a study addressing the influence of lifestyle factors on shrinking height in the elderly published in the April issue of AEJ: Applied Economics.
Michael Frakes' (Cornell Law School) article on medical liability standards from the February issue of the American Economic Review was discussed as part of a Bloomberg opinion piece on medical malpractice.
Slate Magazine recently discussed former AEA president, George Akerlof's classic behavioral research and a 2012 American Economic Review study conducted by German and Swiss researchers to explore how gifting can motivate some employees more than cash incentives do in the workplace.
Contact Us
