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The Effect of School Entrance Age on Educational Outcomes: Evidence Using Multiple Cutoff Dates and Exact Date of Birth

Author

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  • Attar, Itay

    (Ben Gurion University)

  • Cohen-Zada, Danny

    (Ben Gurion University)

Abstract

Using Israeli data, we estimate the effect of school entrance age (SEA) on student outcomes. Unlike much of the recent literature, our identification strategy strictly satisfies the monotonicity assumption required for interpreting our estimates as the local average treatment effect (LATE), and also separates the effect of SEA from date of birth effects. We find that delaying school entry by one year increases fifth grade test scores in Hebrew by 0.34 standard deviations and in math by 0.19. Interestingly, while the advantage in Hebrew slightly decreases in eighth grade, in math it almost doubles. We also show that by failing to control for date of birth fixed effects we would have erroneously concluded that the SEA effect on math test scores decreases slightly from fifth grade to eight grade while it actually substantially increases.

Suggested Citation

  • Attar, Itay & Cohen-Zada, Danny, 2017. "The Effect of School Entrance Age on Educational Outcomes: Evidence Using Multiple Cutoff Dates and Exact Date of Birth," IZA Discussion Papers 10568, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10568
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    6. Stacy Dickert-Conlin & Amitabh Chandra, 1999. "Taxes and the Timing of Birth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(1), pages 161-177, February.
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    9. Rashmi Barua & Kevin Lang, 2009. "School Entry, Educational Attainment and Quarter of Birth: A Cautionary Tale of LATE," NBER Working Papers 15236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    11. 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.
    12. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
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    1. Fumarco, Luca & Baert, Stijn, 2019. "Relative age effect on European adolescents’ social network," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 318-337.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    student outcomes; school entrance age; date of birth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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