Relative Cohort Size and Student Achievement: A Test of Easterlin’s Hypothesis

• In Event: Roundtable Session 83
  In Roundtable Session: Framing the Issue: Discussion of Data and School Profiles

Abstract

Easterlin asserts that individuals born into cohorts relatively larger than those from preceeding generations experience poorer health, social and economic outcomes. Using an age-period-cohort-characteristics model, I identify the effects of relative cohort size on dropout rates and academic achievement. To control for possible selection bias, I use a method introduced by Hoxby (2000) to exploit random variation in student enrollment due to random variation in births from year to year. The estimates indicate that relative cohort size has no effect on dropout rates at the national level. At the subnational level, specifically at the district level in California, I find no effects on dropout rates or Reading test scores, but a significant negative effect on Math test scores.

Author

• Noli Brazil, University of California - Berkeley