Using State Child Labor Laws to Identify the Effect of School-Year Work on High School Achievement

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Labor Economics
Year: 2003
Volume: 21
Issue: 2
Pages: 353-380

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

This article uses variation in the labor supply of twelfth-grade students created by interstate variations in child labor laws to estimate the effect of school-year work on twelfth-grade math achievement. The instrumental variable estimates in this article indicate that an exogenous decrease in school-year hours worked of 10 hours per week would result in a 0.2 standard deviation increase in math scores. Comparisons to ordinary least squares estimates suggest that failure to account for the endogeneity of the labor supply decisions of high school students will result in underestimates of the negative impact of school-year work on academic achievement.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:ucp:jlabec:v:21:y:2003:i:2:p:353-380
Journal Field
Labor
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-29