Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP5754
Authors: Robert J. Garybobo; Mohamed Badrane Mahjoub
Abstract: Using a rich sample of students from French junior high schools with a panel structure, we obtain small but significant and negative effects of class size on probabilities of educational success, in grades 6 and 7. An 8 to 10 student reduction of class size puts the child of a non-educated mother on an equal footing with the child of a college-educated mother. These effects vanish in grades 8 and 9. We use Angrist and Lavy's (1999) theoretical class size (i.e., "Maimonides' rule") as an instrument for observed class size. This is possible, due to availability of total high school and total grade enrollment in each year, in our exceptional data set. We control for father occupation, mother education and other variables. Using a Probit framework to model transitions from one grade to another (and thus grade repetitions), we simultaneously estimate the student's probabilities of success over 4 years in junior high school. This is done while allowing a general covariance structure of the error terms that affect latent student-performance variables and class-size auxiliary equations.
Keywords: class size; econometrics; education; instrumental variables; junior high school
JEL Codes: C33; C35; I20
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| observable variables (parental occupation and education) (I24) | confounding effect on class size and educational outcomes (I24) |
| Maimonides' rule (D81) | class size (C55) |
| class size (C55) | educational success probabilities (I24) |
| class size (C55) | promotion rates in grades 6 and 7 (M51) |
| class size (C55) | educational outcomes (I26) |
| class size (C55) | diminishing returns in grades 8 and 9 (D29) |