 Higher education responses to accountabilityAnaely Machado, Rafael Terra and Maria Tannuri-Pianto Economics of Education Review, 2024, vol. 98, issue C Abstract: This paper estimates the impact of accountability scores on Brazilian higher education. We implement a regression discontinuity design to explore a natural experiment resulting from the federal rules for assigning quality levels to undergraduate programs. We test whether program quality is sensitive to negative reinforcement, such as punishments imposed when a minimum threshold is not attained. The findings indicate that program administrators exhibit a positive response to the prospect of punishment by enhancing program quality in the subsequent evaluation cycle. The primary drivers of this advancement – infrastructure, teaching and learning evaluations, faculty dedication, and the proportion of faculty with a Ph.D. degree – are largely under the administrators’ direct control. However, quality indicators less subject to administrative manipulation, such as student performance and value-added measures, exhibit minimal change. Keywords: Regression discontinuity; Accountability; Higher education; Impact evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:98:y:2024:i:c:s0272775723001401 DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102493 Access Statistics for this article Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier |
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