Causal inference on the engagement effects of athletic participation from within‐student variation
利用城市学区学生数据，通过微观经济模型和工具变量法，研究体育参与对出勤率和违纪停学的影响，发现体育能提高出勤率但对停学无显著影响。
Abstract We study how athletic participation relates to two measures of engagement, school attendance and disciplinary suspension, among students in an urban school district. Following one strand of the literature, we study within‐student variation, comparing the same student when playing sports versus not. To this literature, we contribute a microeconomic model to better interpret estimates obtained using such variation, and we propose and employ novel instrumental variables based on lagged season‐specific sports choices and the sports‐specific participation trajectories of other students. Our most rigorous models suggest positive effects of athletics on student attendance, but no significant effects on disciplinary suspension.