Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Andrew McKendrick
Author-Name-First: Andrew
Author-Name-Last: McKendrick
Title: Paying Students to Stay in School
Abstract: I examine the impact of the Education Maintenance Allowance, a conditional cash transfer in England that was available nationally from 2004 to 2011, on a range of short- and long-term outcomes. Average treatment effects are identified, assuming unconfoundedness, using Inverse Probability Weighting Regression Adjustment. Treatment effect heterogeneity is examined using Causal Forests, a new machine learning approach. I find beneficial impacts of EMA on retention, university attendance and, for the first time, insecure work, as measured by the probability of being on a “zero hours” contract. Other outcomes (educational attainment, risky behaviours, and labour market outcomes) are found not to be impacted.
Creation-Date: 2022
File-URL: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/lums/economics/working-papers/LancasterWP2022_002.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Number: 352591296
Classification-JEL: H52, I12, I28, J22
Keywords: Education Maintenance Allowance, Causal Forest, Heterogeneity, Labour Market Outcomes, Job Security, Risky Behaviours
Handle: RePEc:lan:wpaper:352591296