Do Longer School Days Have Enduring Educational, Occupational, or Income Effects? A Natural Experiment in Buenos Aires, Argentina/Comment

In 1971 longer school days were decreed for around half of the primary schools in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The policy covered all the city neighborhoods, and the schools were chosen probably at random. An unusual opportunity for a natural experiment was thus created. In 2006 and 2007 the authors interviewed a sample of 380 alumni of the 1971 cohort, thirty years after their 1977 graduation from schools with and without longer days. They tried to identify how the length of their school days affected their education, occupation, and income. They thought it was important to review and to compare both the older literature on the relationship between the length of school schedules and academic results and the newer literature devoted to renewing the educational production function approach using random or natural experiments. They then conclude with a discussion of the results and some of their policy implications.