School Performance, Score Inflation and Economic Geography

Erich Battistin () and Lorenzo Neri

No 11161, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We show that grading standards for primary school exams in England have triggered an inflation of quality indicators in the national performance tables for almost two decades. The cumulative effects have resulted in significant differences in the quality signaled to parents for otherwise identical schools. These differences are as good as random, with score inflation resulting from discretion in the grading of randomly assigned external markers. We find large housing price gains from the school quality improvements artificially signaled by inflation as well as lower deprivation and more businesses catering to families in local neighborhoods. The design ensures improved external validity for the valuation of school quality with respect to boundary discontinuities and has the potential for replication outside of our specific case study.

Keywords: score inflation; school quality; house prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 C31 I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-geo and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published as 'School Performance, Score Inflation, and Neighborhood Development' in: Journal of Labor Economics, 2024, 42 (3), 753–792

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Related works:
Working Paper: School Performance, Score Inflation and Economic Geography (2017)
Working Paper: School Performance, Score Inflation and Economic Geography (2017)
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