Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/35597 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 3749
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We exploit a rich administrative panel data-set for cohorts of Economics students at a UK university in order to identify causal effects of class absence on student performance. We utilise the panel properties of the data to control for unobserved heterogeneity across students and hence for endogeneity between absence and academic performance of students stemming from the likely influence of unobserved effort and ability on both absence and performance. Our estimations also exploit features of the data such as the random assignment of students to classes and information on the timetable of classes, which yield potential instruments in our identification strategy. Among other results, we find that there is a causal effect of absence on performance for students: missing class leads to poorer performance. There is evidence from a quantile regression specification that this is particularly true for better-performing students, consistent with our hypothesis that effects of absence on performance are likely to vary with factors such as student ability.
Subjects: 
Randomised experiments
quantile regression
selection correction
panel data
education
student performance
class absence
JEL: 
C41
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
323.03 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.