IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/ucsbec/qt4823c3jx.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Real Costs of Nominal Grade Inflation? New Evidence from Student Course Evaluations

Author

Listed:
  • Babcock, Phillip

Abstract

College GPAs in the United States rose substantially between the 1960’s and the 2000’s. Over the same period, study time declined by almost a half. This paper uses a 12-quarter panel of course evaluations from the University of California, San Diego to discern whether a link between grades and effort investment holds up in a micro setting. Results indicate that average study time would be about 50% lower in a class in which the average expected grade was an “A” than in the same course taught by the same instructor in which students expected a “C.” Simultaneity suggests estimates are biased toward zero. Findings do not appear to be driven primarily by the individual student’s expected grade, but by the average expected grade of others in the class. Class-specific characteristics that generate low expected grades appear to produce higher effort choices—evidence that nominal changes in grades may lead to real changes in effort investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Babcock, Phillip, 2009. "Real Costs of Nominal Grade Inflation? New Evidence from Student Course Evaluations," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt4823c3jx, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:qt4823c3jx
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/4823c3jx.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stinebrickner Ralph & Stinebrickner Todd R., 2008. "The Causal Effect of Studying on Academic Performance," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-55, June.
    2. Betts, Julian R. & Grogger, Jeff, 2003. "The impact of grading standards on student achievement, educational attainment, and entry-level earnings," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 343-352, August.
    3. Figlio, David N. & Lucas, Maurice E., 2004. "Do high grading standards affect student performance?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1815-1834, August.
    4. Becker, William E, Jr, 1982. "The Educational Process and Student Achievement Given Uncertainty in Measurement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 229-236, March.
    5. Philip Babcock & Mindy Marks, 2011. "The Falling Time Cost of College: Evidence from Half a Century of Time Use Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 468-478, May.
    6. William Chan & Li Hao & Wing Suen, 2007. "A Signaling Theory Of Grade Inflation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(3), pages 1065-1090, August.
    7. Costrell, Robert M, 1994. "A Simple Model of Educational Standards," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 956-971, September.
    8. Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2003. "Equilibrium Information Disclosure: Grade Inflation and Unraveling," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1996, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul Kingsley & Taly Sharon, 2014. "Business and Academic Interests in the Maintenance of Standards in Online Higher Education," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(4), pages 21582440145, December.
    2. Alexander Ludwig & Dirk Krueger, 2015. "Optimal Capital and Progressive Labor Income Taxation with Endogenous Schooling Decisions and Intergenerational Transfers," 2015 Meeting Papers 334, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Alexander Ludwig & Dirk Krueger, 2010. "Optimal Progressive Taxation and Education Subsidies in a Model of Endogenous Human Capital Formation," 2010 Meeting Papers 388, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philip Babcock, 2010. "Real Costs Of Nominal Grade Inflation? New Evidence From Student Course Evaluations," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(4), pages 983-996, October.
    2. Martin Gregor, 2021. "Electives Shopping, Grading Policies and Grading Competition," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(350), pages 364-398, April.
    3. Maria De Paola, 2011. "Easy grading practices and supply–demand factors: evidence from Italy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 227-246, October.
    4. Ozkan Eren & Daniel J. Henderson, 2008. "The impact of homework on student achievement," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 11(2), pages 326-348, July.
    5. Giorgio Brunello & Lorenzo Rocco, 2008. "Educational Standards in Private and Public Schools," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(533), pages 1866-1887, November.
    6. Robert Schwager, 2018. "Majority Vote on Educational Standards," CESifo Working Paper Series 6845, CESifo.
    7. Chakraborty, Archishman & Harbaugh, Rick, 2007. "Comparative cheap talk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 70-94, January.
      • Archishman Chakraborty & Rick Harbaugh, 2004. "Comparative Cheap Talk," Working Papers 2004-08, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    8. Chadi, Adrian & de Pinto, Marco & Schultze, Gabriel, 2019. "Young, gifted and lazy? The role of ability and labor market prospects in student effort decisions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 66-79.
    9. Ersoy, Fulya, 2023. "Effects of perceived productivity on study effort: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 376-391.
    10. Sevket Alper Koc & Hakki Cenk Erkin, 2015. "Standards, Inequality in Education and Efficiency," World Journal of Applied Economics, WERI-World Economic Research Institute, vol. 1(1), pages 21-43, June.
    11. Jalava, Nina & Joensen, Juanna Schrøter & Pellas, Elin, 2015. "Grades and rank: Impacts of non-financial incentives on test performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 161-196.
    12. Hans Bonesrønning, 2004. "Do the teachers' grading practices affect student achievement?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 151-167.
    13. Darren Grant & William Green, 2013. "Grades as incentives," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 1563-1592, June.
    14. De Witte, Kristof & Geys, Benny & Solondz, Catharina, 2014. "Public expenditures, educational outcomes and grade inflation: Theory and evidence from a policy intervention in the Netherlands," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 152-166.
    15. Maria De Paola & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2010. "A signalling model of school grades under different evaluation systems," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 199-212, November.
    16. Bonesronning, Hans, 2004. "Can effective teacher behavior be identified?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 237-247, June.
    17. Grant, Darren, 2007. "Grades as information," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 201-214, April.
    18. M. De Paola & V. Scoppa, 2007. "Returns to skills, incentives to study and optimal educational standards," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 229-262, December.
    19. Kristin Butcher & Patrick J. McEwan & Akila Weerapana, 2024. "Making the (Letter) Grade: The Incentive Effects of Mandatory Pass/Fail Courses," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 19(3), pages 385-408, Summer.
    20. Meier, Volker & Schiopu, Ioana, 2020. "Enrollment expansion and quality differentiation across higher education systems," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 43-53.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:qt4823c3jx. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.