Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/193206 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11912
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Credible evidence from a variety of contexts suggests that student absences harm academic achievement. However, extant studies focus entirely on the average effects of student absences, and how those average effects vary by student, school, and absence type. This paper enhances our understanding of the nature of the causal relationship between absences and achievement by estimating quantile regressions that identify the impact of student absences on the full distribution of achievement, not just its mean. Somewhat surprisingly, the harmful effects of student absences are approximately constant across the achievement distribution. This suggests that cost-benefit analyses of interventions designed to improve attendance can use previously-estimated average effects to predict benefits. Moreover, it suggests that interventions that target all students would neither increase nor decrease the variance in test scores.
Subjects: 
student attendance
chronic absence
education production function
quantile regression
JEL: 
I2
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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