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Students’ behavioural responses to a fallback option - Evidence from introducing interim degrees in german schools

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  • Obergruber, Natalie
  • Zierow, Larissa

Abstract

Without a school degree, students can have difficulty in the labour market. To improve the lives of upper-secondary school dropouts, German states instituted a school reform that awarded an interim degree to high-track students upon completion of Grade 9. Using retrospective spell data on school careers from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), our difference-in-differences approach exploits the staggered implementation of this reform between 1965 and 1996. As intended, the reform reduced downgrading to lower school tracks. Surprisingly, it also increased successful high-track completion, arguably by reducing the perceived risk of trying longer to succeed in the high-track school.

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  • Obergruber, Natalie & Zierow, Larissa, 2020. "Students’ behavioural responses to a fallback option - Evidence from introducing interim degrees in german schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:75:y:2020:i:c:s0272775718307179
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2020.101956
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    Cited by:

    1. Obergruber, Natalie & Zierow, Larissa, 2020. "Students’ behavioural responses to a fallback option - Evidence from introducing interim degrees in german schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    2. Elisabeth Grewenig, 2021. "School Track Decisions and Teacher Recommendations: Evidence from German State Reforms," ifo Working Paper Series 353, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    School degree; School tracking; School dropout;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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