TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of class-size reduction on cognitive and non-cognitive skills
AU - Ito, Hirotake
AU - Nakamuro, Makiko
AU - Yamaguchi, Shintaro
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank an anonymous prefecture for providing data and research fund. This research was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A), 2016-2021 (16H02022, Makiko Nakamuro) and conducted as a part of the Project Research on the Improvement in Resource Allocation and Productivity among the Healthcare and Education Service Industries undertaken at Research Institute of Economy,Trade and Industry (RIETI).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2020/3
Y1 - 2020/3
N2 - We estimate the effects of class-size reduction by exploiting exogenous variation caused by Maimonides’ rule, which requires that the maximum class size is 40 students and that classes be split into two when 41 students are enrolled. Our data cover all fourth to ninth graders in 1064 public schools in an anonymous prefecture of Japan for three years. We find that the effects of class-size reduction on academic test scores are statistically and/or economically insignificant when school fixed effects are controlled. We find no evidence that small class size improves non-cognitive skills.
AB - We estimate the effects of class-size reduction by exploiting exogenous variation caused by Maimonides’ rule, which requires that the maximum class size is 40 students and that classes be split into two when 41 students are enrolled. Our data cover all fourth to ninth graders in 1064 public schools in an anonymous prefecture of Japan for three years. We find that the effects of class-size reduction on academic test scores are statistically and/or economically insignificant when school fixed effects are controlled. We find no evidence that small class size improves non-cognitive skills.
KW - Longitudinal data
KW - Maimonides' rule
KW - Regression discontinuity design
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U2 - 10.1016/j.japwor.2019.100977
DO - 10.1016/j.japwor.2019.100977
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074348251
SN - 0922-1425
VL - 53
JO - Japan and The World Economy
JF - Japan and The World Economy
M1 - 100977
ER -