Top of the class: the importance of ordinal rank

Murphy, Richard and Weinhardt, Felix (2020) Top of the class: the importance of ordinal rank. The Review of Economic Studies, 87 (6). 2777 - 2826. ISSN 0034-6527

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Abstract

This article establishes a new fact about educational production: ordinal academic rank during primary school has lasting impacts on secondary school achievement that are independent of underlying ability. Using data on the universe of English school students, we exploit naturally occurring differences in achievement distributions across primary school classes to estimate the impact of class rank. We find large effects on test scores, confidence, and subject choice during secondary school, even though these students have a new set of peers and teachers who are unaware of the students’ prior ranking in primary school. The effects are especially pronounced for boys, contributing to an observed gender gap in the number of Maths courses chosen at the end of secondary school. Using a basic model of student effort allocation across subjects, we distinguish between learning and non-cognitive skills mechanisms, finding support for the latter.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://academic.oup.com/restud
Additional Information:	© 2020 The Authors
Divisions:	Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	L Education > L Education (General) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
JEL classification:	I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education > I21 - Analysis of Education J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Time Allocation, Work Behavior, and Employment Determination and Creation; Human Capital; Retirement > J24 - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
Date Deposited:	15 Jun 2020 12:57
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 02:12
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/105077

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