IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/swe/wpaper/2023-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of School Closures on Standardized Test Scores: Evidence from a Zero-COVID Environment

Author

Listed:
  • Nalini Prasad

    (UNSW Sydney)

  • Christian Gillitzer

    (The University of Sydney)

Abstract

Pandemic school closures were widespread but occurred together with COVID-19 health effects. Australia’s successful COVID-19 elimination policies provide a unique setting to studythe effect of school closures on learning loss absent significant health effects. We exploit variation in the duration of school closures across Australian regions of 9-157 school days and student-level test score data from a national standardized test with high participation to estimate learning loss. Learning loss was substantially smaller than comparable estimates from the literature, including for disadvantaged socioeconomic groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Nalini Prasad & Christian Gillitzer, 2023. "The Effect of School Closures on Standardized Test Scores: Evidence from a Zero-COVID Environment," Discussion Papers 2023-13, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    • Handle: RePEc:swe:wpaper:2023-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/RePEc/papers/2023-13.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    2. Fitzpatrick, Maria D. & Grissmer, David & Hastedt, Sarah, 2011. "What a difference a day makes: Estimating daily learning gains during kindergarten and first grade using a natural experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 269-279, April.
    3. Edouard Mathieu & Hannah Ritchie & Esteban Ortiz-Ospina & Max Roser & Joe Hasell & Cameron Appel & Charlie Giattino & Lucas Rodés-Guirao, 2021. "A global database of COVID-19 vaccinations," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(7), pages 947-953, July.
    4. Bastian A. Betthäuser & Anders M. Bach-Mortensen & Per Engzell, 2023. "A systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence on learning during the COVID-19 pandemic," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(3), pages 375-385, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Su, Yaqin (Joyce) & Xia, Anping & Gong, Da & Yan, Andong, 2024. "The impact of zero-COVID policies on academic performance: Evidence from primary and secondary students in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).

    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. Christian Gillitzer & Nalini Prasad, 2023. "The Effect Of School Closures On Standardized Test Scores: Evidence From A Zero-Covid Environment," Working Papers 2023-09, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    2. Kamila Cygan-Rehm, 2022. "Lifetime Consequences of Lost Instructional Time in the Classroom: Evidence from Shortened School Years," CESifo Working Paper Series 9892, CESifo.
    3. Bas Scheer & Wiljan van den Berge & Maarten Goos & Alan Manning & Anna Salomons, 2022. "Alternative Work Arrangements and Worker Outcomes: Evidence from Payrolling," CPB Discussion Paper 435, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    4. Mac Clay, Pablo & Börner, Jan & Sellare, Jorge, 2023. "Institutional and macroeconomic stability mediate the effect of auctions on renewable energy capacity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    5. Katrin Huber & Geske Rolvering, 2023. "Public child care and mothers’ career trajectories," Working Papers 228, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    6. Alex Hollingsworth & Krzysztof Karbownik & Melissa A. Thomasson & Anthony Wray, 2024. "The Gift of a Lifetime: The Hospital, Modern Medicine, and Mortality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(7), pages 2201-2238, July.
    7. Binelli, Chiara & Comi, Simona & Meschi, Elena & Pagani, Laura, 2024. "Every cloud has a silver lining: The role of study time and class recordings on university students’ performance during COVID-19," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 305-328.
    8. Stefan Bauernschuster & Michael Grimm & Cathy M. Hajo, 2023. "The Impact of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Clinics on Early 20th Century U.S. Fertility and Mortality," CESifo Working Paper Series 10421, CESifo.
    9. Lan, Xiujuan & Hu, Zheneng & Wen, Chuanhao, 2023. "Does the opening of high-speed rail enhance urban entrepreneurial activity? Evidence from China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    10. Jin, Haofeng, 2022. "The effect of overspending on tariff choices and customer churn: Evidence from mobile plan choices," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clarke, Damian & Mühlrad, Hanna & Palme, Mårten, 2021. "Health and Labor Market Impacts of Twin Birth : Evidence from a Swedish IVF Policy Mandate," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1391, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    12. Hwang, Eunju, 2022. "Prediction intervals of the COVID-19 cases by HAR models with growth rates and vaccination rates in top eight affected countries: Bootstrap improvement," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    13. Angulo Amaya, Maria Camila, 2024. "Criminal governance and public resources: The case of paramilitaries and health care provision in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    14. Ran, Qiying & Yang, Xiaodong & Yan, Hongchuan & Xu, Yang & Cao, Jianhong, 2023. "Natural resource consumption and industrial green transformation: Does the digital economy matter?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    15. Kirill Borusyak & Peter Hull & Xavier Jaravel, 2023. "Design-Based Identification with Formula Instruments: A Review," NBER Working Papers 31393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln & Dirk Krueger & André Kurmann & Etienne Lalé & Alexander Ludwig & Irina Popova, 2023. "The Fiscal and Welfare Effects of Policy Responses to the Covid-19 School Closures," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 35-98, March.
    17. Jack (Peiyao) Ma & Andrea Mantovani & Carlo Reggiani & Annette Broocks & Néstor Duch-Brown, 2024. "The Price Effects of Prohibiting Price Parity Clauses: Evidence from International Hotel Groups," Economics Series Working Papers 1043, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. Rik Chakraborti & Gavin Roberts, 2023. "How price-gouging regulation undermined COVID-19 mitigation: county-level evidence of unintended consequences," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(1), pages 51-83, July.
    19. Bove, Vincenzo & Di Salvatore, Jessica & Elia, Leandro & Nisticò, Roberto, 2024. "Mothers at peace: International peacebuilding and post-conflict fertility," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    20. Luo, Lianfa & Cheng, Zhiming & Ye, Qingqing & Cheng, Yanjun & Smyth, Russell & Yang, Zhiqing & Zhang, Le, 2024. "Nonmonetary awards and innovation: Evidence from winning China's Top Brand Contest," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    student test scores; COVID-19; NAPLAN; pandemic;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    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:swe:wpaper:2023-13. 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: Hongyi Li (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/senswau.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.