Author
Sandra E. Black
Other affiliations: Norwegian School of Economics, University of Texas at Austin, Federal Reserve Bank of New York ...read more
Bio: Sandra E. Black is an academic researcher from Columbia University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Educational attainment & Population. The author has an hindex of 48, co-authored 141 publications receiving 16140 citations. Previous affiliations of Sandra E. Black include Norwegian School of Economics & University of Texas at Austin.
Topics: Educational attainment, Population, Productivity, Birth order, Wage
Papers published on a yearly basis
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TL;DR: The authors used house prices to infer the value parents place on school quality, and found that parents are willing to pay 2.5 percent more for a 5 percent increase in test scores.
Abstract: The evaluation of numerous school reforms requires an understanding of the value of better schools. Given the difficulty of calculating the relationship between school quality and student outcomes, I turn to another method and use house prices to infer the value parents place on school quality. I look within school districts at houses located on attendance district boundaries; houses then differ only by the elementary school the child attends. I thereby effectively remove the variation in neighborhoods, taxes, and school spending. I find that parents are willing to pay 2.5 percent more for a 5 percent increase in test scores. This finding is robust to a number of sensitivity checks.
1,659 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the impact of workplace practices, information technology and human capital investments on productivity and found that what is associated with higher productivity is not so much whether or not an employer adopts a particular work practice but rather how that work practice is actually implemented within the establishment.
Abstract: Using data from a unique nationally representative sample of businesses, the Educational Quality of the Workforce National Employers Survey (EQW-NES), matched with the Bureau of the Census' Longitudinal Research Database (LRD), we examine the impact of workplace practices, information technology and human capital investments on productivity. We estimate an augmented Cobb Douglas production function with both cross section and panel data covering the period of 1987-1993 using both within and GMM estimators. We find that what is associated with higher productivity is not so much whether or not an employer adopts a particular work practice but rather how that work practice is actually implemented within the establishment. We also find that those unionized establishments that have adopted what have been called new or transformed' industrial relations practices that promote joint decision making coupled with incentive based compensation have higher productivity than other similar non-union plants maintain more traditional labor management relations have lower productivity. We also find that the higher the average educational level of production workers or the greater the proportion of non-managerial workers who use computers, the higher is plant productivity.
1,337 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the impact of workplace practices, information technology, and human capital investments on productivity and found that it is not whether an employer adopts a particular work practice but rather how that work practice is actually implemented within the establishment that is associated with higher productivity.
Abstract: Using data from a unique nationally representative sample of businesses, we examine the impact of workplace practices, information technology, and human capital investments on productivity. We estimate an augmented Cobb-Douglas production function with both cross section and panel data covering the period of 1987–1993, using both within and GMM estimators. We find that it is not whether an employer adopts a particular work practice but rather how that work practice is actually implemented within the establishment that is associated with higher productivity. Unionized establishments that have adopted human resource practices that promote joint decision making coupled with incentive-based compensation have higher productivity than other similar nonunion plants, whereas unionized businesses that maintain more traditional labor management relations have lower productivity. Finally, plant productivity is higher in businesses with more-educated workers or greater computer usage by nonmanagerial employees.
1,090 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the effects of family size and birth order on the educational attainment of children and found that birth order has a significant and large negative effect on children's education.
Abstract: There is an extensive theoretical literature that postulates a tradeoff between child quantity and quality within a family. However, there is little causal evidence that speaks to this theory. Using a rich dataset on the entire population of Norway over an extended period of time, we examine the effects of family size and birth order on the educational attainment of children. While we find a negative correlation between family size and children's education, when we include indicators for birth order and/or use twin births as an instrument, family size effects become negligible. In addition, birth order has a significant and large negative effect on children's education. We also study adult earnings, employment, and teenage childbearing, and find strong evidence for birth order effects with these outcomes, particularly among women. These findings suggest the need to revisit economic models of fertility and child "production", focusing not only on differences across families but differences within families as well.
1,069 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that the formation of new incorporations increases as the share of small banks decreases, suggesting that diversification benefits of size outweigh the possible comparative advantage small banks may have in forging relationships.
Abstract: The literature is divided on the expected effects of increased competition and consolidation in the financial sector on the supply of credit to relationship borrowers. This paper tests whether policy changes fostering competition and consolidation in U.S. banking helped or harmed entrepreneurs. We find that the rate of new incorporations increases following deregulation of branching restrictions, and that deregulation reduces the negative effect of concentration on new incorporations. We also find the formation of new incorporations increases as the share of small banks decreases, suggesting that diversification benefits of size outweigh the possible comparative advantage small banks may have in forging relationships. OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES, the U.S. financial sector has been reshaped by rapid technological innovation and deregulation. In the 1970s, traditional financial intermediaries, mainly banks, provided the lion's share of credit to nonfinancial companies. At that time, banks had the advantage because they were protected from competitive pressures; price competition was limited by Regulation Q, and entry into banking markets was limited by restrictions on in-state branching and interstate banking. All of this changed over the past 25 years. Starting in the latter half of the 1970s, the U.S. banking system began to be reshaped, both by technological innovations and by the removal of many of these constraining regulations. In the early 1980s, for example, interest rate ceilings were largely removed, allowing banks to compete more vigorously for funds. New technologies like the automated teller machine also enhanced competition within banking, and innovations such as the cash management account offered by nonbank financial companies enhanced competitive pressures from outside the indus
1,047 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide an introduction and user guide to regression discontinuity (RD) design for empirical researchers, including the basic theory behind RD design, details when RD is likely to be valid or invalid given economic incentives.
Abstract: This paper provides an introduction and "user guide" to Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs for empirical researchers. It presents the basic theory behind the research design, details when RD is likely to be valid or invalid given economic incentives, explains why it is considered a "quasi-experimental" design, and summarizes different ways (with their advantages and disadvantages) of estimating RD designs and the limitations of interpreting these estimates. Concepts are discussed using examples drawn from the growing body of empirical research using RD.
3,455 citations
TL;DR: A model of IT business value is developed based on the resource-based view of the firm that integrates the various strands of research into a single framework and provides a blueprint to guide future research and facilitate knowledge accumulation and creation concerning the organizational performance impacts of information technology.
Abstract: Despite the importance to researchers, managers, and policy makers of how information technology (IT) contributes to organizational performance, there is uncertainty and debate about what we know and don't know. A review of the literature reveals that studies examining the association between information technology and organizational performance are divergent in how they conceptualize key constructs and their interrelationships. We develop a model of IT business value based on the resource-based view of the firm that integrates the various strands of research into a single framework. We apply the integrative model to synthesize what is known about IT business value and guide future research by developing propositions and suggesting a research agenda. A principal finding is that IT is valuable, but the extent and dimensions are dependent upon internal and external factors, including complementary organizational resources of the firm and its trading partners, as well as the competitive and macro environment. Our analysis provides a blueprint to guide future research and facilitate knowledge accumulation and creation concerning the organizational performance impacts of information technology.
3,318 citations
TL;DR: In the last two decades, much research has been done on the econometric and statistical analysis of such causal effects as discussed by the authors, which has reached a level of maturity that makes it an important tool in many areas of empirical research in economics, including labor economics, public finance, development economics, industrial organization, and other areas in empirical microeconomics.
Abstract: Many empirical questions in economics and other social sciences depend on causal effects of programs or policies. In the last two decades, much research has been done on the econometric and statistical analysis of such causal effects. This recent theoreti- cal literature has built on, and combined features of, earlier work in both the statistics and econometrics literatures. It has by now reached a level of maturity that makes it an important tool in many areas of empirical research in economics, including labor economics, public finance, development economics, industrial organization, and other areas of empirical microeconomics. In this review, we discuss some of the recent developments. We focus primarily on practical issues for empirical research- ers, as well as provide a historical overview of the area and give references to more technical research.
3,175 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an introduction and user guide to regression discontinuity (RD) designs for empirical researchers, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of estimating RD designs and the limitations of interpreting these estimates.
Abstract: This paper provides an introduction and “user guide” to Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs for empirical researchers. It presents the basic theory behind the research design, details when RD is likely to be valid or invalid given economic incentives, explains why it is considered a “quasi-experimental” design, and summarizes different ways (with their advantages and disadvantages) of estimating RD designs and the limitations of interpreting these estimates. Concepts are discussed using examples drawn from the growing body of empirical research using RD. ( JEL C21, C31)
2,687 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that identifying conditions invoked in previous applications of regression discontinuity methods are often overly strong and that treatment effects can be nonparametrically identified under an RD design by a weak functional form restriction.
Abstract: Ž. THE REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY RD data design is a quasi-experimental design with the defining characteristic that the probability of receiving treatment changes discontinuously as a function of one or more underlying variables. This data design arises frequently in economic and other applications but is only infrequently exploited as a source of identifying information in evaluating effects of a treatment. In the first application and discussion of the RD method, Thistlethwaite and Campbell Ž. 1960 study the effect of student scholarships on career aspirations, using the fact that awards are only made if a test score exceeds a threshold. More recently, Van der Klaauw Ž. 1997 estimates the effect of financial aid offers on students’ decisions to attend a particular college, taking into account administrative rules that set the aid amount partly on the basis of a discontinuous function of the students’ grade point average and SAT Ž. score. Angrist and Lavy 1999 estimate the effect of class size on student test scores, taking advantage of a rule stipulating that another classroom be added when the average Ž. class size exceeds a threshold level. Finally, Black 1999 uses an RD approach to estimate parents’ willingness to pay for higher quality schools by comparing housing prices near geographic school attendance boundaries. Regression discontinuity methods have potentially broad applicability in economic research, because geographic boundaries or rules governing programs often create discontinuities in the treatment assignment mechanism that can be exploited under the method. Although there have been several discussions and applications of RD methods in the literature, important questions still remain concerning sources of identification and ways of estimating treatment effects under minimal parametric restrictions. Here, we show that identifying conditions invoked in previous applications of RD methods are often overly strong and that treatment effects can be nonparametrically identified under an RD design by a weak functional form restriction. The restriction is unusual in that it requires imposing continuity assumptions in order to take advantage of the known discontinuity in the treatment assignment mechanism. We also propose a way of nonparametrically estimating treatment effects and offer an interpretation of the Wald estimator as an RD estimator.
2,577 citations