We use the discontinuous function of enrollment known as Maimonides Rule as an instrument for class size in large Israeli samples from 2002-2011. As in the 1991 data analyzed by Angrist and Lavy (1999), Maimonides Rule still has a strong first stage. In contrast with the earlier Israeli...

In the canonical regression discontinuity (RD) design for applicants who face an award or admissions cutoff, causal effects are nonparametrically identified for those near the cutoff. The impact of treatment on inframarginal applicants is also of interest, but identification of such effects...

Ride-hailing drivers pay a proportion of their fares to the ride-hailing platform operator, a commission-based compensation model used by many internet-mediated service providers. To Uber drivers, this commission is known as the Uber fee. By contrast, traditional taxi drivers in most US cities...

Many centralized matching schemes incorporate a mix of random lottery and non-lottery tie-breaking. A leading example is the New York City public school district, which uses criteria like test scores and interviews to generate applicant rankings for some schools, combined with lottery...

This paper introduces an instrumental variables estimator for the effect of a binary treatment on the quantiles of potential outcomes. The quantile treatment effects (QTE) estimator accommodates exogenous covariates and reduces to quantile regression as a special case when treatment status is...

Instrumental Variables (IV) methods identify internally valid causal effects for individuals whose treatment status is manipulable by the instrument at hand. Inference for other populations requires some sort of homogeneity assumption. This paper outlines a theoretical framework that nests all...

Conventional value-added models (VAMs) compare average test scores across schools after regression-adjusting for students’ demographic characteristics and previous scores. This paper tests for VAM bias using a procedure that asks whether VAM estimates accurately predict the achievement...

The education reform movement includes efforts to raise teacher quality through stricter certification and licensing provisions. Most US states now require public school teachers to pass a standardized test such as the National Teacher Examination. Although any barrier to entry is likely to...

We develop a flexible semiparametric time series estimator that is then used to assess the causal effect of monetary policy interventions on macroeconomic aggregates. Our estimator captures the average causal response to discrete policy interventions in a macro-dynamic setting, without the need...

The question of how technology affects learning has been at the center of recent debates over educational inputs. In 1994, the Israeli State Lottery sponsored the installation of computers in many elementary and middle schools. This program provides an opportunity to estimate the impact of...