Research

Low-stakes standardized tests in British Columbia, Canada: system accountability and/or individual feedback? (with Arthur Sweetman), Education Economics,  https://doi.org/10.1080/09645292.2022.2091113

A jurisdiction-wide zero-stakes Foundational Skills Assessment administered in grade 4 in British Columbia, Canada, used a three-point scale to publicly disseminate aggregate school/district-level results, and a five-point scale to convey results to students/parents. For a variety of long-term outcomes, a regression discontinuity analysis shows a positive, but modest in magnitude, ‘system accountability’ effect for girls who fall just below the lowest threshold on the three-point scale for reading. For numeracy the findings are less precise but suggest a positive ‘feedback effect’ for girls who fall just below the highest five-point scale cut-off. No statistically significant effects are observed for boys.

More than a Basic Income: The Role of Training and Employment Support Programs (with Arthur Sweetman), Chapter 17. In D. Green, J. R. Kesselman, D. Perring, L. M. Tedds (Eds.), Basic Income and a Just Society: Policy Choices for Canadas Social Safety Net. McGill-Queens University Press,  link

(Un)intended Consequences of Permanent School Closures: The Effects on Students, Parents, and Communities in British Columbia (JMP)

TBA

Return to an extra year of high school: evidence from Newfoundland and Labrador (with Arthur Sweetman)

In 1983-84 the province of Newfoundland and Labrador increased the number of years of high school from 11 to 12 without substantially changing the core academic curriculum while introducing new (pre-)vocational courses. We leverage this large-scale exogenous variation to estimate returns to years of schooling in the presence of general equilibrium effects. First, using the 2001 Canadian Census, we demonstrate that this change increased the number of completed years of secondary school by around 0.5-0.6 for both sexes. Employing a fuzzy comparative regression discontinuity (CRD) design and accounting for anticipation, we estimate that when the treated are in their early thirties, the return to an additional year of schooling is around 10% of employment income. This effect translates to increased wealth as measured by their average dwelling value. In addition, the effects seem to persist into the affected group’s early fifties. We suggest two channels that could drive the observed return. First, an additional year of schooling substantially raises migration out of the province, especially for males. Second, it changes the occupational structure with females switching to higher-paying occupations. However, we do not find strong evidence that the reform impacted post-secondary education outcomes. We argue that the introduction of new (pre-)vocational courses plays a key role in the observed responses. Finally, we discuss the implications of the unique economic context of Newfoundland on the interpretation of the results.

Association between type of long-term care accommodations and mortality (with Arthur Sweetman, Andrew Costa, Jeff Poss)

Assessment in High School: The Predictive Power of Teacher and Exam Marks (with Arthur Sweetman)

Cancer Diagnoses Impacts on Families: Economic Evidence from Canada (with Arthur Sweetman and Boris Kralj)

Long-term consequences of dropping out of school in British Columbia: the case of falling below the passing threshold