Essays on the economics of education and health

This dissertation is a collection of three essays exploring the impact of incentives on participation in public education and health programs. The first two essays analyze the demand for Special Education (a program for disabled children) in the U.S., while the third essay explores the demand for subsidized anti-malaria products in Kenya. The first chapter attempts to estimate the direct impact of Special Education (SE) placement on students' social and academic outcomes. Despite the fact that one out of every seven U.S. public school students receives SE services, little is known about the impact of this program on future outcomes. I exploit the strategic incentive to increase SE enrollment induced by a 1996 accountability policy in Chicago Public Schools to identify the impact of SE placement on high school completion, absenteeism and GPA. Pre-accountability performance characteristics of the school determined to what extent sanctions could be avoided by increasing SE placement, since SE students' scores were excluded from accountability measures. I construct an instrument that captures the strength of strategic incentives, and show that low-achieving students in high-incentive schools experienced the largest increase in SE placement. Using instrumental variables analysis and a panel of student data from Chicago Public Schools, I find that SE placement in elementary school reduces the probability of dropping out of high school and absenteeism for the marginal low-achieving student, while results on GPA are inconclusive. I provide evidence that these results are not driven by other changes taking place at high-incentive schools. The results suggest that low-achieving students benefit from SE placement for mild mental disabilities.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Cohen, Jessica Lee

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Autor and Esther Duflo.

• Economics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42394

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/42394