Panel Data in Educational Research

This chapter surveys applications of panel data methods in the economics of education. We focus first on studies which have applied a difference-in-difference approach (using both individual and organisation level data). The way in which panel data can be used to disentangle age and cohort effects in the context of investigating the impact of education on subsequent earnings is explored next. The survey next examines the role of panel data in assessing education peer effects and intergenerational socioeconomic mobility. The review ends by looking at adaptations of methods to assess efficiency in a panel data context, and dynamic discrete choice models and their importance in the context of evaluating the likely effects of policy interventions. Our survey is intended to highlight studies that are representative of the main areas in which the literature has been developed, rather than to be encyclopedic.