The information value of central school exams

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The central vs. local nature of high-school exit exam systems can have important repercussions on the labor market. By increasing the informational content of grades, central exams may improve the sorting of students by productivity. To test this, we exploit the unique German setting where students from states with and without central exams work on the same labor market. Our difference-in-difference model estimates whether the earnings difference between individuals with high and low grades differs between central and local exams. We find that the earnings premium for a one standard-deviation increase in high-school grades is indeed 6 percent when obtained on central exams but less than 2 percent when obtained on local exams. Choices of higher-education programs and of occupations do not appear major channels of this result. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayJEL-Code: I200, J240, J310.

Support for free-market policies and reforms: Does the field of study influence students' political attitudes?

“…For the long-run expectations we use the students' average grade in their high-school diploma (Abitur). High-school grades are a reasonably good predictor of lifetime economic success, albeit not an ideal one (Schwerdt and Woessmann, 2015). The high-school diploma grade does not appear to capture the incoming students' long-run labor market expectations: The grades are not correlated with liberal-democratic attitudes and negatively correlated with the other three political attitudes, implying that academically successful high school students evaluate most policy positions more favorably than academically weak high school graduates.…”

Testing

“…6 By affecting chances to enter specific institutions and fields of higher education as well as the hiring decisions of potential employers, central exit exams usually have real consequences for students; see Bishop (1997), Woessmann (2003), Woessmann et al (2009), Jürges, Schneider, and Büchel (2005), Lüdemann (2011), and Schwerdt and Woessmann (2017) for further analysis of the effects of central exit exams. their efforts.…”

Central exit exams improve student outcomes

“…Exploiting the same German setting, another study aims to directly test whether grades obtained in central exams are indeed associated with higher external rewards in the labor market, which is a necessary condition for one of the potential mechanisms of the central exam effects discussed above [12]. The investigation compares the earnings of individuals with high and low secondary school grades, depending on whether they achieved their grades in states that administered central or local exams.…”