Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/195526 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Citation: 
[Journal:] Quantitative Economics [ISSN:] 1759-7331 [Volume:] 7 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] The Econometric Society [Place:] New Haven, CT [Year:] 2016 [Pages:] 781-820
Publisher: 
The Econometric Society, New Haven, CT
Abstract: 
We study the treatment effect of grade retention using a panel of French junior high-school students, taking unobserved heterogeneity and the endogeneity of grade repetitions into account. We specify a multistage model of human-capital accumulation with a finite number of types representing unobserved individual characteristics. Class-size and latent student-performance indices are assumed to follow finite mixtures of normal distributions. Grade retention may increase or decrease the student's knowledge capital in a type-dependent way. Our estimation results show that the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) of grade reten- tion on test scores is positive but small at the end of grade 9. Treatment effects are heterogeneous: we find that the ATT of grade retention is higher for the weak- est students. We also show that class size is endogenous and tends to increase with unobserved student ability. The average treatment effect of grade retention is neg- ative, again with the exception of the weakest group of students. Grade repetitions reduce the probability of access to grade 9 of all student types.
Subjects: 
Secondary education
grade retention
unobserved heterogeneity
finite mixtures of normal distributions
treatment effects
class-size effects
JEL: 
C23
C36
C38
I2
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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