Working Paper: NBER ID: w21470
Authors: Amy Ellen Schwartz; Jacob Leosurbel; Joel McMurry; Matthew Wiswall
Abstract: This paper examines New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). SYEP provides jobs to youth ages 14-24, and due to high demand for summer jobs, allocates slots through a random lottery system. We match student-level data from the SYEP program with educational records from the NYC Department of Education and use the random lottery to estimate the effects of SYEP participation on a number of academic outcomes, including test taking and performance. We find that SYEP participation has positive impacts on student academic outcomes, and these effects are particularly large for students who participate in SYEP multiple times.
Keywords: Youth Employment; Academic Performance; Summer Youth Employment Program; SYEP
JEL Codes: I2; J24; J38
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| multiple SYEP participation (J68) | improvements in academic outcomes (I24) |
| SYEP participation (J68) | number of Regents exams attempted (C29) |
| SYEP participation (J68) | number of exams passed at various score levels (C46) |
| SYEP lottery win (H27) | number of exams passed at 65 score threshold (C24) |