Research

Abstract: This paper examines experimentally the impact of classroom inputs in the production function of student achievement from kindergarten through 6th grade. We use data from a large cohort of elementary school students in Ecuador, who were randomly assigned to different classrooms at the start of each academic year. We estimate reduced form and structural models of the process of skill accumulation to show that learning at the end of a grade is close to an additive function of classroom quality experienced in all previous grades. There is no evidence of dynamic complementarity between classroom quality across different grades.

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