Parental and School Responses to Student Performance: Evidence from School Entry Rules

Peter Fredriksson (), Björn Öckert () and Lucas Tilley ()
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Peter Fredriksson: Uppsala University and Uppsala Center for Labor Studies (UCLS)
Björn Öckert: Uppsala University and Uppsala Center for Labor Studies (UCLS)
Lucas Tilley: Center for Education and Leadership Excellence, Postal: Stockholm School of Economics, Center for Education and Leadership Excellence, Saltmätargatan 13-17, P.O. Box 6501, 113 83 Stockholm

No 26/4, Working Papers from Stockholm School of Economics, Center for Educational Leadership and Excellence

Abstract: We examine whether parental and school investments reinforce or compensate for student performance. Our analysis exploits school-starting-age rules in 34 countries, capturing achievement variation that arises because younger children typically underperform their older peers. Parents respond to lower performance by providing additional homework help and skills practice, while schools allocate weaker students to smaller classes and offer more remedial tu- toring. Notably, parents provide more support to low-performing children in nearly all countries studied. Compensatory investments increase over grade levels, suggesting parents and schools respond as more information about achievement is revealed. Moreover, our evidence suggests that parental and school investments are substitutes.

Keywords: human capital investment; parental inputs; school inputs; student performance; school starting age (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 69 pages
Date: 2026-03-20
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