Working Paper

Redshirting, compulsory schooling laws, and educational attainment

Abstract: A wide literature uses date of birth as an instrument to study the causal effects of educational attainment. This paper shows how parents delaying their children?s initial enrollment in kindergarten, a practice known as redshirting, can make estimates obtained through this identification framework all but impossible to interpret. A latent index model is used to illustrate how the monotonicity assumption in this framework is violated if redshirting decisions are made in a setting of essential heterogeneity. Empirical evidence is presented from the ECLS-K data set that favors this scenario; redshirting is common and heterogeneity in the treatment effect of educational attainment is likely a factor in parents? redshirting decisions.

Keywords: Education;

https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-201012

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Part of Series: Working Papers (Old Series)

Publication Date: 2010

Number: 1012