Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/44236 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5095
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Social experiments are powerful sources of information about the effectiveness of interventions. In practice, initial randomization plans are almost always compromised. Multiple hypotheses are frequently tested. Significant effects are often reported with p-values that do not account for preliminary screening from a large candidate pool of possible effects. This paper develops tools for analyzing data from experiments as they are actually implemented. We apply these tools to analyze the influential HighScope Perry Preschool Program. The Perry program was a social experiment that provided preschool education and home visits to disadvantaged children during their preschool years. It was evaluated by the method of random assignment. Both treatments and controls have been followed from age 3 through age 40. Previous analyses of the Perry data assume that the planned randomization protocol was implemented. In fact, as in many social experiments, the intended randomization protocol was compromised. Accounting for compromised randomization, multiple-hypothesis testing, and small sample sizes, we find statistically significant and economically important program effects for both males and females. We also examine the representativeness of the Perry study.
Subjects: 
early childhood intervention
compromised randomization
social experiment
multiple-hypothesis testing
JEL: 
I21
C93
J15
V16
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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