Are we spending too many years in school? Causal evidence of the impact of shortening secondary school duration

Bettina Büttner and Stephan Thomsen

No 10-011, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of shortening the duration of secondary schooling on the accumulation of human capital. In 2003, an educational policy reform was enacted in Saxony-Anhalt, a German state, providing a natural experimental setting. The thirteenth year of schooling was eliminated for those students currently attending the ninth grade. Tenth grade students were unaffected. The academic curriculum remained almost unaltered. Using primary data from the double cohort of Abitur graduates in 2007, significant negative effects were discovered for both genders in mathematics and for females only in English. The effects on literature were not statistically significant.

Keywords: student performance; school duration; learning intensity; natural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 I21 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Are We Spending Too Many Years in School? Causal Evidence of the Impact of Shortening Secondary School Duration (2015)
Journal Article: Are We Spending Too Many Years in School? Causal Evidence of the Impact of Shortening Secondary School Duration (2015)
Working Paper: Are We Spending Too Many Years in School? Causal Evidence of the Impact of Shortening Secondary School Duration (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:10011

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