IZA DP No. 14168: Age of Starting School, Academic Performance, and the Impact of Non-Compliance: An Experiment within an Experiment, Evidence from Australia
published in: Economic Record, 2023, 99 (325), 175 - 206
This paper estimates the difference in academic performance of the oldest and youngest students in a given grade. We employ Queensland Department of Education school administration panel data for the population of state school students for the years 2008-2016. Academic performance is measured by National standard test scores (NAPLAN) and teacher assessed measures of performance and effort for individuals in grades 3, 5 and 7. The empirical analysis employs a regression discontinuity design (RDD) based on administrative rules on age of school enrolment. The class assigning mechanism operates via a known cut-off date and results in the oldest child in the grade being almost a year older than the youngest. However, as parents may anticipate a disadvantage in their child being the youngest in grade they may choose to delay the timing of initial enrolment.
This lack of compliance potentially creates difficulties for the RDD identification strategy, in particular the assumption of exchangeability around the cut-off. We exploit a change in the cut-off rule from a 2008 reform which postponed the school starting age by 6 months and produced a large increase in the compliance rate. This enables one to gauge the importance of non-compliance in estimating the treatment effect of being older versus younger in cohort. We find that the pre-reform treatment effect is small and generally statistically insignificant. Post-reform there is a sizeable and statistically significant treatment effect which diminishes as the sample proceeds through school grades, 3, 5 and 7.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.