Do second chances pay off? Evidence from a natural experiment with low-achieving students☆

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bizopoulou, Aspasia; Megalokonomou, Rigissa; Simion, Stefania
• 署名单位: VATT Institute for Economic Research; Monash University; University of Bristol
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105214
• 发表日期: 2024
• 关键词: Postsecondary education admission; Low-achieving students; Exogenous policy; Fuzzy regression discontinuity design

摘要

In several countries, students who fail high-stakes exams at the end of high school are faced with the choice of retaking or forgoing postsecondary education. We explore exogenous variation generated by a policy that imposed a performance threshold for admission into postsecondary education in Greece to estimate the effect of retaking exams on the exam performance and various measures of the quality of received offers. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and novel administrative data, we find that low-achieving students who retake national exams improve their performance by around 0.6 standard deviation. We also find that they obtain higher quality postsecondary offers, thanks to improved performance and more ambitious re-application choices.