Dynamic Effort Choice in High School: Costs and Benefits of an Academic Track

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: De Groote, Olivier
• 署名单位: Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Toulouse School of Economics
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/726702
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 467-502
• 关键词: grade retention; higher-education; discrete-choice; nonparametric identification; structural estimation; behavioral economics; job search; models; returns; LABOR

摘要

I investigate high school tracking policies using a dynamic discrete choice model of study programs and unobserved effort. I estimate the model using data from Flanders (Belgium) and perform an ex ante evaluation of a policy that encourages underperforming students to switch to less academically oriented programs. This reduces grade retention by a third and dropout by 11%. Although it decreases college enrollment, the decrease in college graduation is small and insignificant. I also show that modeling effort is important; otherwise, smaller decreases in grade retention and dropout and larger decreases in college enrollment and graduation would be predicted.