Grade failure, drop out and subsequent school outcomes: quasi-experimental evidence from Uruguayan administrative data

This paper uses administrative longitudinal micro data on about 100,000 Uruguayan students in public non-vocational Junior High school (grades 7-9) to identify the causal effect of grade failure on students' subsequent school outcomes. Exploiting the discontinuity in promotion rates induced by a rule that establishes that a pupil missing more than 25 days during the school year will automatically fail that grade I show that grade failure leads to substantial drop out and lower educational attainment after 4 to 5 years since the time when failure first occurred. Complementary evidence based on a change in the regime of grade promotion provides additional support for this conclusion.

[1]  Shane R. Jimerson,et al.  WINNING THE BATTLE AND LOSING THE WAR: EXAMINING THE RELATION BETWEEN GRADE RETENTION AND DROPPING OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL , 2002 .

[2]  R. Barro,et al.  International Data on Educational Attainment Updates and Implications , 2000 .

[3]  J. Angrist,et al.  Using Maimonides&Apos; Rule to Estimate the Effect of Class Size on Student Achievement , 1997 .

[4]  Isaac Ehrlich,et al.  On the Usefulness of Controlling Individuals: An Economic Analysis of Rehabilitation, Incapacitation and Deterrence , 1981 .

[5]  Norbert R. Schady,et al.  Cash Transfers, Conditions, School Enrollment, and Child Work: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Ecuador , 2006 .

[6]  Steven D. Levitt,et al.  Using Sentence Enhancements to Distinguish between Deterrence and Incapacitation , 1998 .

[7]  Elizabeth U. Cascio.  School Progression and the Grade Distribution of Students: Evidence from the Current Population Survey , 2005, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[8]  Justin McCrary,et al.  Manipulation of the Running Variable in the Regression Discontinuity Design , 2005 .

[9]  E. Hanushek,et al.  Causes and Consequences of Grade Repetition: Evidence from Brazil , 1994, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[10]  Steven Shavell,et al.  The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law , 1998 .

[11]  David S. Lee,et al.  Economic Impacts of New Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984–2001 , 2004 .

[12]  Jörn-Steffen Pischke,et al.  The Impact of Length of the School Year on Student Performance and Earnings: Evidence from the German Short School Years , 2003, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[13]  Petra E. Todd,et al.  Progressing Through Progresa: An Impact Assessment of a School Subsidy Experiment , 2001 .

[14]  M. Urquiola,et al.  Apples and oranges: Educational enrollment and attainment across countries in Latin America and the Caribbean , 2006 .

[15]  E. Maurin,et al.  The Effects of Overcrowded Housing on Children's Performance at School , 2003 .

[16]  David S. Lee,et al.  Crime, Punishment, and Myopia , 2005 .

[17]  S. Jimerson,et al.  A prospective longitudinal study of high school dropouts: Examining multiple predictors across development. , 2000 .

[18]  Oshua,et al.  USING MAIMONIDES’ RULE TO ESTIMATE THE EFFECT OF CLASS SIZE ON SCHOLASTIC ACHIEVEMENT* , 2003 .

[19]  Stijn Vogels.  World Factbook 2005 , 2005 .

[20]  Eric R. Eide,et al.  The effect of grade retention on educational and labor market outcomes , 2001 .

[21]  A. Reynolds,et al.  Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Paper no. 1167-98 Grade Retention and School Performance: An Extended Investigation , 1998 .

[22]  Marisa Bucheli,et al.  Asistencia escolar y participacin en el mercado de trabajo de los adolecentes en Uruguay , 2000 .