Marte Rønning

Quasi-Experimental Estimates of the Effect of Class Size on Achievement in Norway

Using a comprehensive administrative database we exploit independent quasi-experimental methods to estimate the effect of class size on student achievement in Norway. The first method is based on a maximum class size rule in the spirit Angrist and Lavy (1999). The second method exploits population variation as first proposed by Hoxby (2000). The results of both methods (and of variations on these methods) are very similar and cannot reject that the class size effect is equal to zero. The estimates are very precise; we can rule out effects as small as 1.5 percent of a standard deviation for a one student change in class size during three years in a row.

Classroom Grade Composition and Pupil Achievement

This paper exploits discontinuous grade mixing rules in Norwegian junior high schools to estimate how classroom grade composition affects pupil achievement. Pupils in mixed grade classrooms are found to outperform pupils in single grade classrooms on high stake central exit tests and teacher set and graded tests. This effect is driven by pupils benefiting from sharing the classroom with more mature peers from higher grades. The presence of lower grade peers is detrimental for achievement. Pupils can therefore benefit from de-tracking by grade, but the effects depend crucially on how the classroom is balanced in terms of lower and higher grades. These results reconcile the contradictory findings in the literature.

Why do wealthy parents have wealthy children

Strong intergenerational associations in wealth have fueled a longstanding debate over why children of wealthy parents tend to be well off themselves. We investigate the role of family background in determining children’s wealth accumulation and investor behavior as adults. The analysis is made possible by linking Korean-born children who were adopted at infancy by Norwegian parents to a population panel data set with detailed information on disaggregated wealth portfolios and socio-economic characteristics. The mechanism by which these Korean- Norwegian adoptees were assigned to adoptive families is known and effectively random. We use the quasi-random assignment to estimate the causal effects from an adoptee being raised in one type of family versus another. Our findings show that family background matters significantly for children’s accumulation of wealth and investor behavior as adults, even when removing the genetic connection between children and the parents raising them. In particular, adoptees raised by wealthy parents are more likely to be well off themselves, whereas adoptees’ stock market participation and portfolio risk are increasing in the financial risk taking of their adoptive parents. The detailed nature of our data allows us to explore mechanisms, assess the generalizability of the lessons from adoptees, and compare our findings to results from behavioral genetics decompositions.

A Cost Model of Schools: School Size, School Structure and Student Composition

This chapter analyses the relationship between school resources and school and student body characteristics. School mergers and school district consolidation have been a controversial issue in several countries, including the United States, United Kingdom and Norway. 1 To have measures of financial benefits of such policies one needs estimates of the economies of scale in education. The available literature indicates sizable potential cost savings of consolidation, see for example Andrews et al. (2002) and Taylor and Bradley (2000). A separate argument, why economies of scale in education are important, is the existence of maximum class size rules, which is common in many countries. A reduction in the number of students does not necessarily affect the number of teachers simply because it does not need to affect the number of classes. State aid to school districts typically tries to take not only objective cost differences into account, related to scale economies, but also differences due to variation in student composition. Students from certain demographic groups, for example students from ethnic minorities, may be more costly than other students, and it is usually argued that school districts with a large share of these types of students should for equity reasons be compensated with higher state aid, see for example Downes and Pogue (1994)