Showing papers by "Parag A. Pathak published in 2013"

Explaining Charter School Effectiveness

Abstract: Lottery estimates suggest Massachusetts’ urban charter schools boost achievement well beyond that of traditional urban public schools students, while nonurban charters reduce achievement from a higher baseline. The fact that urban charters are most effective for poor nonwhites and low-baseline achievers contributes to, but does not fully explain, these differences. We therefore link school-level charter impacts to school inputs and practices. The relative efficacy of urban lottery sample charters is accounted for by these schools’ embrace of the No Excuses approach to urban education. In our Massachusetts sample, Non-No-Excuses urban charters are no more effective than nonurban charters. (JEL H75, I21, I28) A growing body of evidence suggests that urban charter schools have the potential to generate impressive achievement gains, especially for minority students living in high-poverty areas. In a series of studies using admissions lotteries to identify causal effects, we looked at the impact of charter attendance in Boston and at a Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) school in Lynn, Massachusetts (Abdulkadiro ˘ g

Matching with Couples: Stability and Incentives in Large Markets*

Abstract: Accommodating couples has been a longstanding issue in the design of centralized labor market clearinghouses for doctors and psychologists, because couples view pairs of jobs as complements. A stable matching may not exist when couples are present. This paper’s main result is that a stable matching exists when there are relatively few couples and preference lists are suciently short relative to market size. We also discuss incentives in markets with couples. We relate these theoretical results to the job market for psychologists, in which stable matchings exist for all years of the data, despite the presence of couples.

School Admissions Reform in Chicago and England: Comparing Mechanisms by their Vulnerability to Manipulation

Abstract: In Fall 2009, ocials from Chicago Public Schools changed their assignment mechanism for coveted spots at selective college preparatory high schools midstream. After asking about 14,000 applicants to submit their preferences for schools under one mechanism, the district asked them re-submit their preferences under a new mechanism. Ocials were concerned that \high-scoring kids were being rejected simply because of the order in which they listed their college prep preferences" under the abandoned mechanism. What is somewhat puzzling is that the new mechanism is also manipulable. This paper introduces a method to compare mechanisms based on their vulnerability to manipulation. Under our notion, the old mechanism is more manipulable than the new Chicago mechanism. Indeed, the old Chicago mechanism is at least as manipulable as any other plausible mechanism. A number of similar transitions between mechanisms took place in England after the widely popular Boston mechanism was ruled illegal in 2007. Our approach provides support for these and other recent policy changes involving matching mechanisms.

The Effects of Mandatory Transparency in Financial Market Design: Evidence from the Corporate Bond Market

Abstract: Many financial markets have recently become subject to new regulations requiring transparency. This paper studies how mandatory transparency affects trading in the corporate bond market. In July 2002, TRACE began requiring the public dissemination of post-trade price and volume information for corporate bonds. Dissemination took place in Phases, with actively traded, investment grade bonds becoming transparent before thinly traded, high-yield bonds. Using new data and a differences-in-differences research design, we find that transparency causes a significant decrease in price dispersion for all bonds and a significant decrease in trading activity for some categories of bonds. The largest decrease in daily price standard deviation, 24.7%, and the largest decrease in trading activity, 41.3%, occurs for bonds in the final Phase, which consisted primarily of high-yield bonds. These results indicate that mandated transparency may help some investors and dealers through a decline in price dispersion, while harming others through a reduction in trading activity.

Small High Schools and Student Achievement: Lottery-Based Evidence from New York City. NBER Working Paper No. 19576.

Abstract: One of the most wide-ranging reforms in public education in the last decade has been the reorganization of large comprehensive high schools into small schools with roughly 100 students per grade. We use assignment lotteries embedded in New York City's high school match to estimate the effects of attendance at a new small high school on student achievement. More than 150 unselective small high schools created between 2002 and 2008 have enhanced autonomy, but operate within-district with traditional public school teachers, principals, and collectively-bargained work rules. Lottery estimates show positive score gains in Mathematics, English, Science, and History, more credit accumulation, and higher graduation rates. Small school attendance causes a substantial increase in college enrollment, with a marked shift to CUNY institutions. Students are also less likely to require remediation in reading and writing when at college. Detailed school surveys indicate that students at small schools are more engaged and closely monitored, despite fewer course offerings and activities. Teachers report greater feedback, increased safety, and improved collaboration. The results show that school size is an important factor in education production and highlight the potential for within-district reform strategies to substantially improve student achievement.

How Individual Preferences Get Aggregated in Groups - An Experimental Study

Abstract: This paper experimentally investigates how individual preferences, through unrestricted deliberation, are aggregated into a group decision in two contexts: reciprocating gifts and choosing between lotteries. In both contexts, we find that median group members have a significant impact on the group decision, but the median is not the only influential group member. Non-median members closer to the median tend to have more influence than other members. By investigating the same individual's influence in different groups, we find evidence for relative position in the group having a direct effect on influence. These results are consistent with predictions from a spatial model of dynamic bargaining determining group choices. We also find that group deliberation involves bargaining and compromise as well as persuasion: preferences tend to shift towards the choice of the individual's previous group, especially for those with extreme individual preferences.

Matching with Couples: Stability and Incentives in Large Markets

Abstract: Accommodating couples has been a longstanding issue in the design of centralized labor market clearinghouses for doctors and psychologists, because couples view pairs of jobs as complements. A stable matching may not exist when couples are present. This paper's main result is that a stable matching exists when there are relatively few couples and preference lists are sufficiently short relative to market size. We also discuss incentives in markets with couples. We relate these theoretical results to the job market for psychologists, in which stable matchings exist for all years of the data, despite the presence of couples.

The Demise of Walk Zones in Boston: Priorities vs. Precedence in School Choice

Abstract: School choice plans in many cities grant students higher priority for some (but not all) seats at their neighborhood schools This paper demonstrates how the precedence order, ie the order in which different types of seats are filled by applicants, has quantitative effects on distributional objectives comparable to priorities in the deferred acceptance algorithm While Boston's school choice plan gives priority to neighborhood applicants for half of each school's seats, the intended effect of this policy is lost because of the precedence order Despite widely held impressions about the importance of neighborhood priority, the outcome of Boston's implementation of a 50-50 school split is nearly identical to a system without neighborhood priority We formally establish that either increasing the number of neighborhood priority seats or lowering the precedence order positions of neighborhood seats at a school have the same effect: an increase in the number of neighborhood students assigned to the school We then show that in Boston a reversal of precedence with no change in priorities covers almost three-quarters of the range between 0% and 100% neighborhood priority Therefore, decisions about precedence are inseparable from decisions about priorities Transparency about these issues--in particular, how precedence unintentionally undermined neighborhood priority--led to the abandonment of neighborhood priority in Boston in 2013

Small High Schools and Student Achievement: Lottery-Based Evidence from New York City

Abstract: One of the most wide-ranging reforms in public education in the last decade has been the reorganization of large comprehensive high schools into small schools with roughly 100 students per grade. We use assignment lotteries embedded in New York City’s high school match to estimate the eects of attendance at a new small high school on student achievement. More than 150 unselective small high schools created between 2002 and 2008 have enhanced autonomy, but operate within-district with traditional public school teachers, principals, and collectively-bargained work rules. Lottery estimates show positive score gains in Mathematics, English, Science, and History, more credit accumulation, and higher graduation rates. Small school attendance causes a substantial increase in college enrollment, with a marked shift to CUNY institutions. Students are also less likely to require remediation in reading and writing when at college. Detailed school surveys indicate that students at small schools are more engaged and closely monitored, despite fewer course oerings and activities. Teachers report greater feedback, increased safety, and improved collaboration. The results show that school size is an important factor in education production and highlight the potential for within-district reform strategies to substantially improve student achievement.

Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston's Charter High School on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice

Abstract: We use admissions lotteries to estimate the effects of attendance at Boston’s charter high schools on college preparation, college attendance, and college choice. Charter attendance increases pass rates on the high-stakes exam required for high school graduation in Massachusetts, with especially large effects on the likelihood of qualifying for a state-sponsored college scholarship. Charter attendance has little effect on the likelihood of taking the SAT, but shifts the distribution of scores rightward, moving students into higher quartiles of the state SAT score distribution. Boston’s charter high schools also increase the likelihood of taking an Advanced Placement (AP) exam, the number of AP exams taken, and scores on AP Calculus tests. Finally, charter attendance induces a substantial shift from two-to four-year institutions, though the effect on overall college enrollment is modest. The increase in four-year enrollment is concentrated among four-year public institutions in Massachusetts. The large gains generated by Boston’s charter high schools are unlikely to be generated by changes in peer composition or other peer effects.

Charter School Demand and Effectiveness: A Boston Update

Abstract: We studied the demand for and effectiveness of charter schools in Boston. We find: • From school year 2009–10 to school year 2012–13, applicants per seat available increased from about two applicants per seat to three applicants per seat in middle school, and from about three per seat to four in high school. • A majority of applicants are offered a seat, mostly off waitlists as opposed to on lottery day. About two-thirds of charter middle school applicants and 40 percent of high school applicants who are offered a seat accept it. • Confirming prior work, we find large positive gains on MCAS for students who attend a Boston charter school, on the order of a 6 to 12 percentage point gain in proficiency per year. Gains are largest for minority students and English language learners, as well as in middle schools, students with lower prior MCAS scores.

The Demise of Walk Zones in Boston: Priorities vs. Precedence in School Choice

Abstract: School choice plans in many cities grant students higher priority for some (but not all) seats at their neighborhood schools. This paper demonstrates how the precedence order, i.e. the order in which different types of seats are filled by applicants, has quantitative effects on distributional objectives comparable to priorities in the deferred acceptance algorithm. While Boston’s school choice plan gives priority to neighborhood applicants for half of each school’s seats, the intended effect of this policy is lost because of the precedence order. Despite widely held impressions about the importance of neighborhood priority, the outcome of Boston’s implementation of a 50-50 school split is nearly identical to a system without neighborhood priority. We formally establish that either increasing the number of neighborhood priority seats or lowering the precedence order positions of neighborhood seats at a school have the same effect: an increase in the number of neighborhood students assigned to the school. We then show that in Boston a reversal of precedence with no change in priorities covers almost three-quarters of the range between 0% and 100% neighborhood priority. Therefore, decisions about precedence are inseparable from decisions about priorities. Transparency about these issues—in particular, how precedence unintentionally undermined neighborhood priority—led to the abandonment of neighborhood priority in Boston in 2013.

Small High Schools and Student Achievement: Lottery-Based Evidence from New York City

Abstract: One of the most wide-ranging reforms in public education in the last decade has been the reorganization of large comprehensive high schools into small schools with roughly 100 students per grade. We use assignment lotteries embedded in New York City's high school match to estimate the effects of attendance at a new small high school on student achievement. More than 150 unselective small high schools created between 2002 and 2008 have enhanced autonomy, but operate within-district with traditional public school teachers, principals, and collectively-bargained work rules. Lottery estimates show positive score gains in Mathematics, English, Science, and History, more credit accumulation, and higher graduation rates. Small school attendance causes a substantial increase in college enrollment, with a marked shift to CUNY institutions. Students are also less likely to require remediation in reading and writing when at college. Detailed school surveys indicate that students at small schools are more engaged and closely monitored, despite fewer course offerings and activities. Teachers report greater feedback, increased safety, and improved collaboration. The results show that school size is an important factor in education production and highlight the potential for within-district reform strategies to substantially improve student achievement.

Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston's Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice

Abstract: We use admissions lotteries to estimate the effects of attendance at Boston's charter high schools on college preparation, college attendance, and college choice. Charter attendance increases pass rates on the high-stakes exam required for high school graduation in Massachusetts, with especially large effects on the likelihood of qualifying for a state-sponsored college scholarship. Charter attendance has little effect on the likelihood of taking the SAT, but shifts the distribution of scores rightward, moving students into higher quartiles of the state SAT score distribution. Boston's charter high schools also increase the likelihood of taking an Advanced Placement (AP) exam, the number of AP exams taken, and scores on AP Calculus tests. Finally, charter attendance induces a substantial shift from two- to four-year institutions, though the effect on overall college enrollment is modest. The increase in four-year enrollment is concentrated among four-year public institutions in Massachusetts. The large gains generated by Boston's charter high schools are unlikely to be generated by changes in peer composition or other peer effects.

How individual preferences get aggregated in groups - An experimental study

Abstract: This paper experimentally investigates how individual preferences, through unrestricted deliberation, get aggregated into a group decision in two contexts: reciprocating gifts, and choosing between lotteries. In both contexts we find that median group members have a significant impact on the group decision, but particular other members also have some influence. Non-median members closer to the median tend to have more influence than other members. By investigating the same individual’s influence in different groups, we find evidence for relative position in the group having a direct effect on influence. We do not find evidence that group choice exhibits a shift in a particular direction that is independent of member preferences and caused by the group decision context itself. We also find that group deliberation not only involves bargaining and compromise, but it also involves persuasion: preferences tend to shift towards the choice of the individual’s previous group, especially for those with extreme individual preferences.