The Effect of Central Exit Examinations on Student Achievement: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Timss Germany

28 Pages Posted: 29 May 2003

See all articles by Hendrik Jürges

Hendrik Jürges

University of Mannheim - Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA); German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)

Kerstin Schneider

University of Dortmund; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Felix Büchel

Max Planck Institute for Human Development; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Date Written: May 2003

Abstract

This paper makes use of the regional variation in schooling legislation within the German secondary education system to estimate the causal effect of central exit examinations on student performance. We propose a difference-in-differences framework that exploits the quasi-experimental nature of the German TIMSS middle-school sample. The estimates show that students in federal states with central exit examinations clearly outperform students in other federal states, but that only part of the difference can be attributed to central exit examinations. Our results suggest that central examinations increase student achievement by about one third school year equivalent.

Keywords: Education, Central Examinations, Difference-in-differences, Quasi-experiment

JEL Classification: I28

Suggested Citation

Jürges, Hendrik and Schneider, Kerstin and Büchel, Felix, The Effect of Central Exit Examinations on Student Achievement: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Timss Germany (May 2003). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=407000 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.407000

Hendrik Jürges

University of Mannheim - Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA) ( email )

D-68131 Mannheim
Germany

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) ( email )

Mohrenstraße 58
Berlin, 10117
Germany

Kerstin Schneider (Contact Author)

University of Dortmund ( email )

D-44221 Dortmund
Germany

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Felix Büchel

Max Planck Institute for Human Development ( email )

Lentzeallee 94
D-14195 Berlin, 14195
Germany
+49 30 8240 6427 (Phone)
+49 30 8249 939 (Fax)

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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