DMCA
Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools (2002)
Cached
Download Links
| Citations: | 536 - 14 self |
BibTeX
@MISC{Altonji02selectionon,
author = {Joseph G. Altonji and Todd E. Elder and Christopher R. Taber},
title = {Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools},
year = {2002}
}
Share
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
OpenURL
Abstract
In this paper we measure the effect of Catholic high school attendance on educational attainment and test scores. Because we do not have a good instrumental variable for Catholic school attendance, we develop new estimation methods based on the idea that the amount of selection on the observed explanatory variables in a model provides a guide to the amount of selection on the unobservables. We also propose an informal way to assess selectivity bias based on measuring the ratio of selection on unobservables to selection on observables that would be required if one is to attribute the entire effect of Catholic school attendance to selection bias. We use our methods to estimate the effect of attending a Catholic high school on a variety of outcomes. Our main conclusion is that Catholic high schools substantially increase the probability of graduating from high school and, more Distinguishing between correlation and causality is the most difficult challenge faced by empirical researchers in the social sciences. Social scientists rarely are in a position to run a
Keyphrases
unobserved variable catholic school catholic school attendance catholic high school empirical researcher main conclusion observed explanatory variable good instrumental variable difficult challenge catholic high school attendance new estimation method educational attainment selectivity bias social scientist entire effect high school test score informal way selection bias social science
