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  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2016
  5. Interpreting Tests of School VAM Validity

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Interpreting Tests of School VAM Validity

  • Joshua Angrist
  • Peter Hull
  • Parag Pathak
  • Christopher Walters
American Economic Review
vol. 106, no. 5, May 2016
(pp. 388–92)
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Abstract

We develop over-identification tests that use admissions lotteries to assess the predictive value of regression-based value-added models (VAMs). These tests have degrees of freedom equal to the number of quasi-experiments available to estimate school effects. By contrast, previously implemented VAM validation strategies look at a single restriction only, sometimes said to measure forecast bias. Tests of forecast bias may be misleading when the test statistic is constructed from many lotteries or quasi-experiments, some of which have weak first stage effects on school attendance. The theory developed here is applied to data from the Charlotte-Mecklenberg School district analyzed by Deming (2014).

Citation

Angrist, Joshua, Peter Hull, Parag Pathak, and Christopher Walters. 2016. "Interpreting Tests of School VAM Validity." American Economic Review, 106 (5): 388–92. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161080

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
  • I21 Analysis of Education