Students’ Social Origins and Targeted Grade Inflation

Quaderni DSE Working Paper No. 801

45 Pages Posted: 20 Dec 2011 Last revised: 10 Apr 2013

See all articles by Alessandro Tampieri

Alessandro Tampieri

University of Florence - Department of Economics and Management; University of Luxembourg

Date Written: April 7, 2013

Abstract

Grade in‡flation or soft grading is a common feature of the educational systems of many countries. In this paper I analyse grade in‡flation in a setting in which students differ in social background, and the grading policy can be targeted according to student type. I consider a signalling game where firms decide whether to hire students and their salary after observing their grades and social background, a university can in‡flate grades, when students decide whether to attend university. A targeted grade in‡flation may have redistributive effects by raising the salary of students with disadvantaged social background, if their grades are less in‡flated than other students’.

Keywords: soft grading, social background, signalling

JEL Classification: D82, I21

Suggested Citation

Tampieri, Alessandro, Students’ Social Origins and Targeted Grade Inflation (April 7, 2013). Quaderni DSE Working Paper No. 801, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1974496 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1974496

Alessandro Tampieri (Contact Author)

University of Florence - Department of Economics and Management ( email )

Via delle Pandette, 9
Firenze, Florence 50127
Italy

University of Luxembourg ( email )

Avenue de la Faïencerie
162a
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg L-1511
Luxembourg

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
70
Abstract Views
590
Rank
594,111
PlumX Metrics