Parental Divorce and Students’ Performance: Evidence from Longitudinal Data*
利用全国教育纵向研究数据，分析青少年时期经历父母离异是否影响标准化考试成绩，发现离异对认知技能无负面影响，且横截面估计会夸大其不利效应。
Abstract In this article, we analysed data from the National Education Longitudinal Study to investigate whether experiencing parental divorce during adolescence had an adverse impact on students’ performance on standardized tests. To account for the potential endogeneity of parental divorce we employed double and triple difference models that rely on observing teenagers from intact and divorced backgrounds before and after the divorce occurs. We found that parental divorce does not negatively affect teenagers’ cognitive skills. Our results also suggest that cross‐sectional estimates overstate the detrimental effect of parental divorce.