Working Papers
Instructor Value-added in Post-secondary Education (with Jacob Light and Anthony Yim)
Because students select courses and instructors based on characteristics unobserved by the econometrician, conventional value-added estimates in higher education are susceptible to selection bias. We develop a method that groups students with similar course histories and identifies instructor effects by comparing outcomes among students in the same course with different instructors. Using Purdue University's algorithmic course assignment policy, we show that the method eliminates most of the forecast bias present in conventional approaches and performs comparably to benchmark estimates under algorithm-constrained assignment. Applying the method across Texas public four-year universities, we find similarly large reductions in forecast bias relative to conventional approaches. Instructors have economically meaningful effects on students' subsequent outcomes: a one standard deviation increase in instructor value-added raises next-semester GPA by 0.05 points and earnings by 5%. Roughly half of the earnings effect is associated with differences in major choice. Student evaluations are only weakly correlated with value-added, are more strongly associated with grading leniency, and remain systematically lower for non-white and non-native instructors after controlling for value-added.
Easy A's, Less Pay: The Long-Term Effects of Grade Inflation (with Jeff Denning, Rachel Nesbit, and Nolan Pope)
Average grades continue to rise in the United States, raising questions about the impact of grade inflation on students. We provide comprehensive evidence on the effect of teacher grading practices on students' long-run success. Using administrative high school data from Los Angeles and from Maryland linked to postsecondary and earnings records, we develop and validate two teacher-level measures of grade inflation: one measuring average grade inflation and another measuring a teacher's propensity to give a passing grade. These measures of grade inflation are distinct from teacher value-added, with grade inflating teachers having moderately lower cognitive value-added and slightly higher noncognitive value-added. These two measures also differentially impact students' long-term outcomes. Being assigned a higher average grade inflating teacher reduces a student's future test scores, the likelihood of graduating from high school, college enrollment, and ultimately earnings. In contrast, passing grade inflation reduces the likelihood of being held back and increases high school graduation, with limited long-run effects.
Publications
A Design-Based Perspective on Synthetic Control Methods (with Lea Bottmer, Guido Imbens, and Jann Spiess), Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 2023 (alt link)
Why Have College Completion Rates Increased? (with Jeffrey T. Denning, Eric Eide, Kevin Mumford, and Rich Patterson), AEJ: Applied, 2023.
Divisibility Properties of Coefficients of Modular Functions in Genus Zero Levels (with Victoria Iba, and Paul Jenkins), Integers, 2019.
Research in Progress
Estimating Public Returns to Higher Education (with Jacob Light and Natalie Millar)
Grade Inflation Mechanisms in U.S. Higher Education (with Jonathan Conzelmann)
Performance-Based Funding and Grading Standards in Higher Education