TY - UNPB

T1 - Paying Students to Stay in School

T2 - Short- and Long-term Effects of a Conditional Cash Transfer in England

AU - McKendrick, Andrew

PY - 2022/3/23

Y1 - 2022/3/23

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Education Maintenance Allowance

KW - Causal Forest

KW - Heterogeneity

KW - Labour Market Outcomes

KW - Job Security

KW - Risky Behaviours

M3 - Working paper

T3 - Economics Working Papers Series

BT - Paying Students to Stay in School

PB - Lancaster University, Department of Economics

CY - Lancaster

ER -