Education Program Meeting.

• Position: Program and Working Group Meeting - National Bureau of Economic Research

The NBER's Program on Education, directed by Caroline M. Hoxby of Harvard University, met in Cambridge on November 9 and 10. These papers were presented and discussed at the meeting:

Mark Hoekstra, University of Pittsburgh, "The Effect of Attending the Flagship State University on Earnings: A Regression Discontinuity Approach"

Carlos Dobkin, University of California, Santa Cruz, and Fernando Ferreira, University of Pennsylvania, "Should We Care About the Age at Which Children Enter School? The Impact of School Entry Laws on Educational Attainment and Labor Market Outcomes"

Philip Babcock, University of California, Santa Barbara, "From Ties to Gains ? Evidence on Connectedness, Skill Acquisition, and Diversity"

Andrea Ichino, European University Institute; Pietro Garibaldi, University of Turin; Francesco Giavazzi, MIT and NBER; and Enrico Rettore, University of Padova, "College Cost and Time to Obtain a Degree: Evidence from Tuition Discontinuities"

Moshe Justman, Ben Gurion University, and Yaakov Gilboa, Sapir Academic College, "Equal Opportunity in Education: Lessons from the Kibbutz"

Adalbert Mayer and Steven Puller, Texas A&M University, "The Old Boy (and Girl) Network: Social Network Formation on University Campuses"

Sally Kwak, University of Hawaii-Manoa, "The Impact of Intergovernmental Incentives on Disability Rates and Special Education Spending"

By combining confidential admissions records from a large state university with earnings data collected through the state's Unemployment Insurance program, Hoekstra examines the effect of attending the flagship state university on the earnings of 28-33 year-olds. To distinguish this effect from the effects of confounding factors correlated with the university's admission decision, and/or the applicant's enrollment decision, he uses a regression discontinuity approach along with a conventional instrumental variable approach. The results indicate that attending the most selective state university causes earnings to be at least 10 percent higher for white men, an effect that is considerably higher than ordinary least squares estimates. However, he finds no effect on earnings for white women generally and only weak evidence of a positive effect for white women with strong attachment to the labor force.

Dobkin and Ferreira examine how state laws regulating the age at which students can enter school affect children's progression through school, adult educational attainment, and labor market...