Cited by 143Youth Substance Use and School AttendanceSchool Choice and PerformanceEducational Outcomes and Influences

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 49 of the 58 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 24 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

The short- and long-run impacts of secondary school absences

Open access
Liu, Jing, Lee, Monica, Gershenson, Seth·2021·Journal of Public Economics

Abstract

Abstract We provide novel evidence on the causal impacts of student absences in middle and high school on state test scores, course grades, and educational attainment using a rich administrative dataset that tracks the date and class period of each absence. We use two similar but distinct identification strategies that address potential endogeneity due to time-varying student-level shocks by exploiting within-student, between-subject variation in class-specific absences. We also leverage information on the timing of absences to show that absences that occur after the annual window for state standardized testing do not affect test scores, providing a further check of our identification strategy. Both approaches yield similar results. We find that absences in middle and high school harm contemporaneous student achievement and longer-term educational attainment: On average, missing 10 classes reduces math or English Language Arts test scores by 3–4% of a standard deviation and course grades by 17–18% of a standard deviation. 10 total absences across all subjects in 9th grade reduce both the probability of on-time graduation and ever enrolling in college by 2%. Learning loss due to school absences can have profound economic and social consequences.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104441

Cites

49 of 49 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

68 Own result · 32 Own interpretation · 19 Not checked yet · 13 No basis given · 11 Own method

Verify all 24 references — free account

Show all 84 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 46
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 17
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 1
59 of 59
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Absences in one subject do not affect achievement in another subject, conditional on other factors and the student-year shock.

    “second, that any spillover effects of absences in one subject on academic mastery in another are relatively trivial.”
    “Conditional on math absences, X, and the year-specific student shock, ELA absences do not affect math achievement.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Within-student differences in absences between math and ELA are conditionally random, so absences in one subject serve as a good proxy for the student-year shock.

    “first, that in a given school year, within-student differences in absences in math and English language arts (ELA) are conditionally random”
    “A -j needs to be a good proxy in the sense that conditional on A -j , A j is no longer correlated with the idiosyncratic shock (v it in Equation 2).”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Within-student differences in absences between subjects are conditionally random and not due to year-specific subject preferences.

    “both the proxy plug-in and stacked student-year fixed-effects strategies assume that such differences are conditionally random (e.g., because of the timing of a dentist appointment or leaving school early due to illness) and not the result of a year-specific preference for one subject over the other.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Non-math absences do not directly affect math performance, ruling out cross-subject spillover effects.

    “the redundancy assumption made by the proxy plug-in solution, which is that non-math (e.g., ELA) absences do not directly affect math performance.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The effects of absences are linear, with no diminishing or increasing costs and no discrete effect at the chronic absenteeism threshold.

    “The main results presented in Section 4.1 assume that the effects of absences are linear -that is, that there are neither diminishing nor increasing costs to student absences, nor is there a discrete effect of crossing the threshold for being considered chronically absent, which in this district is defined as missing at least 10% of total school days (accruing about 18 absences).”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The harm of absences is the same across all student and school types.

    “The models estimated to this point also assume that the harm of absences is the same across all student and school types.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Grades in the district are based on academic performance and cannot be based on nonacademic factors such as absences.

    “Grades in the district are explicitly based on academic performance and are not allowed to be based on nonacademic factors such as absences.”
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Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

2 of 2

Citations

Cites

Show all 58 references

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Dundar, 2016, The National Student Clearinghouse as an integral part of the national postsecondary data infrastructure, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 20, 1
  2. Gottfried, Michael A. and E. Hutt, Addressing Absenteeism, Harvard Education Press, 2019.

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Metadata

Authors
Liu, J., Lee, M., & Gershenson, S.
Affiliations
  • University of Maryland, College Park (US)
  • Brown University (US)
  • American University (US)
Corresponding author
Liu, Jing
Venue
Journal of Public Economics
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2021-07
Volume
199
Pages
104441
ISSN
0047-2727 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2972629176
Cited by
143
References
58
Citations by year
2026: 29 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 41 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 6
FWCI
18.87
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Public Economics (publishedVersion)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Institute of Education Sciences
  • Spencer Foundation
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Youth Substance Use and School Attendance
  • Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
  • Social Sciences › Education › Educational Outcomes and Influences
Keywords
school absenteeism, course grades, educational attainment, high school graduation, college enrollment, learning loss, junior high school, high schools, endogeneity

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