IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aoz/wpaper/286.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Parental Love Is Not Blind: Identifying Selection into Early School Start

Author

Listed:
  • Ainoa Aparicio Fenoll

    (University of Turin/Collegio Carlo Alberto)

  • Nadia Campaniello

    (University of Turin/Collegio Carlo Alberto)

  • Ignacio Monzón

    (University of Turin/Collegio Carlo Alberto)

Abstract

Do parents take into account their children’s ability when deciding on their education? If so, are parents’ perceptions accurate? We study this by analyzing a key educational decision. Parents choose whether their children start elementary school one year early. Do they select high ability kids to start early? We propose a novel methodology to identify the sign and strength of selection into early starting. We find robust evidence of positive selection. Had they started regularly, early starters would have obtained test scores 0.2 standard deviations higher than the average student. Our simple methodology applies to RDD settings in general

Suggested Citation

  • Ainoa Aparicio Fenoll & Nadia Campaniello & Ignacio Monzón, 2023. "Parental Love Is Not Blind: Identifying Selection into Early School Start," Working Papers 286, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    • Handle: RePEc:aoz:wpaper:286
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://rednie.eco.unc.edu.ar/files/DT/286.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Damian Clarke & Sonia Oreffice & Climent Quintana‐Domeque, 2019. "The demand for season of birth," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(5), pages 707-723, August.
    2. Josh Kinsler & Ronni Pavan, 2021. "Local Distortions in Parental Beliefs over Child Skill," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(1), pages 81-100.
    3. Elizabeth Dhuey & David Figlio & Krzysztof Karbownik & Jeffrey Roth, 2019. "School Starting Age and Cognitive Development," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 538-578, June.
    4. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    5. Gupta, Abhimanyu, 2018. "Nonparametric specification testing via the trinity of tests," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 203(1), pages 169-185.
    6. Black, Dan A. & Joo, Joonhwi & LaLonde, Robert & Smith, Jeffrey A. & Taylor, Evan J., 2022. "Simple Tests for Selection: Learning More from Instrumental Variables," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Dobkin, Carlos & Ferreira, Fernando, 2010. "Do school entry laws affect educational attainment and labor market outcomes?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 40-54, February.
    8. Kelly Bedard & Elizabeth Dhuey, 2006. "The Persistence of Early Childhood Maturity: International Evidence of Long-Run Age Effects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1437-1472.
    9. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Keueger, 1991. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 979-1014.
    10. Patrick J. McEwan & Joseph S. Shapiro, 2008. "The Benefits of Delayed Primary School Enrollment: Discontinuity Estimates Using Exact Birth Dates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(1).
    11. Philip J. Cook & Songman Kang, 2016. "Birthdays, Schooling, and Crime: Regression-Discontinuity Analysis of School Performance, Delinquency, Dropout, and Crime Initiation," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 33-57, January.
    12. Claire Crawford & Lorraine Dearden & Costas Meghir, 2010. "When you are born matters: the impact of date of birth on educational outcomes in England," IFS Working Papers W10/06, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    13. Claire Crawford & Lorraine Dearden & Ellen Greaves, 2014. "The drivers of month-of-birth differences in children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 177(4), pages 829-860, October.
    14. Rebecca Dizon-Ross, 2019. "Parents' Beliefs about Their Children's Academic Ability: Implications for Educational Investments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2728-2765, August.
    15. Patrizia Ordine & Giuseppe Rose & Daniela Sposato, 2018. "Parents Know Them Better: The Effect Of Optional Early Entry On Pupils' Schooling Attainment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(3), pages 1678-1705, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peña, Pablo A., 2020. "Relative age and investment in human capital," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Kaila, Martti, 2017. "The Effects of Relative School Starting Age on Educational Outcomes in Finland," Working Papers 84, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Görlitz, Katja & Penny, Merlin & Tamm, Marcus, 2022. "The long-term effect of age at school entry on cognitive competencies in adulthood," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 91-104.
    4. Tony Beatton & Michael P. Kidd & Matteo Sandi, 2020. "School indiscipline and crime," CEP Discussion Papers dp1727, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Berniell, Inés & Estrada, Ricardo, 2020. "Poor little children: The socioeconomic gap in parental responses to school disadvantage," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    6. Insu Chang & Heeran Park & Hosung Sohn, 2021. "Causal Impact of School Starting Age on the Tempo of Childbirths: Evidence from Working Mothers and School Entry Cutoff Using Exact Date of Birth," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(4), pages 997-1022, November.
    7. Filmer, Deon & Rogers, Halsey & Angrist, Noam & Sabarwal, Shwetlena, 2020. "Learning-adjusted years of schooling (LAYS): Defining a new macro measure of education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. Attar, Itay & Cohen-Zada, Danny, 2018. "The effect of school entrance age on educational outcomes: Evidence using multiple cutoff dates and exact date of birth," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 38-57.
    9. Caterina Calsamiglia & Annalisa Loviglio, 2020. "Maturity and school outcomes in an inflexible system: evidence from Catalonia," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 1-49, March.
    10. Peña, Pablo A., 2017. "Creating winners and losers: Date of birth, relative age in school, and outcomes in childhood and adulthood," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 152-176.
    11. Attar, Itay & Cohen-Zada, Danny & Elder, Todd E., 2024. "Measuring and Correcting Monotonicity Bias: The Case of School Entrance Age Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 17088, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Rafael Matta & Rafael P. Ribas & Breno Sampaio & Gustavo R. Sampaio, 2016. "The effect of age at school entry on college admission and earnings: a regression-discontinuity approach," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-25, December.
    13. Julio Cáceres-Delpiano & Eugenio Giolito, 2024. "School starting age and the impact on school admission," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(1), pages 225-251, July.
    14. Cook, Philip J. & Kang, Songman, 2020. "Girls to the front: How redshirting and test-score gaps are affected by a change in the school-entry cut date," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    15. Claire Crawford & Lorraine Dearden & Ellen Greaves, 2013. "The impact of age within academic year on adult outcomes," IFS Working Papers W13/07, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Goncalo Lima & Luis Catela Nunes & Ana Balcao Reis & Maria do Carmo Seabra, 2022. "No country for young kids? The effects of school starting age throughout childhood and beyond," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp639, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    17. Mónica L. Caudillo, 2019. "Advanced School Progression Relative to Age and Early Family Formation in Mexico," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(3), pages 863-890, June.
    18. YAMAGUCHI Shintaro & ITO Hirotake & NAKAMURO Makiko, 2020. "Month-of-Birth Effects on Skills and Skill Formation," Discussion papers 20079, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    19. Cristina Borra & Libertad González & David Patiño, 2024. "Mothers' school starting age and infant health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(6), pages 1153-1191, June.
    20. Guo, Chuanyi & Wang, Xuening & Meng, Chen, 2023. "Does the early bird catch the worm? Evidence and interpretation on the long-term impact of school entry age in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    School starting age; Selection; Children; Education; Treatment effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aoz:wpaper:286. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Laura Inés D Amato (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/redniar.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.