Seminarios

Using detailed administrative data on schooling and crime records from Chile, we estimate the effect  of grade retention at primary school on juvenile delinquency. In particular, we take advantage of the  grade retention rule which specifies that students who fail more than one subject must repeat the year. Given that we find some evidence supporting the idea that the forcing variable is manipulated, we present  two empirical strategies to address this potential problem. First, we combine matching with fuzzy regression  discontinuity (FRD) design. Second, since the evidence of manipulation is only for the closest scores to the  threshold (3.9 and 4.0), we estimate a FRD estimator dropping the individuals scoring 3.9 or 4.0. These two approaches give similar results: in the case of men, grade retention increases the probability of juvenil crime in 2 percentage points, and that effect is higher for students who attend public schools. These results are robust to different tests and specifications

El  Seminario  se realizará el miércoles 27 de enero de 13:00 a 14:00 hrs, en  la Sala P-307 Tercer Piso del edificio Placa de la Facultad de Economía y Negocios de la Universidad de Chile, ubicada en Diagonal Paraguay 257.