Failing Students Optimally

Arthur Caplan

No 2004-17, Working Papers from Utah State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper estimates the deadweight loss associated with not failing an optimal number of students. We find that this loss ranges between $3,200 and $4,600 per student over the student's four-year undergraduate career. One possible ramification of adopting a more stringent student-failure policy (to recoup the deadweight loss) is investigated. We find that an institution can promote greater effort on the part of both students and faculty by encouraging faculty to fail more students.

Keywords: optimal fail rate; student-failure policy; deadweight loss (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D21 D61 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-11
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https://repec.bus.usu.edu/RePEc/usu/pdf/ERI2004-17.pdf First version, 2004 (application/pdf)

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