IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cesifo/v62y2016i3p506-521..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Honest Grading, Grade Inflation, and Reputation

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Ehlers
  • Robert Schwager

Abstract

When students receive better grades without any corresponding increase in ability, this is called grade inflation. Conventional wisdom says that such grade inflation is unavoidable since it is essentially costless to award good grades. In this article, we point out an effect driving into the opposite direction: Grade inflation is not actually costless, since it has an impact on future cohorts of graduates, or, put differently, by grading honestly, a school can build up reputation. Introducing a concern for reputation into an established signalling model of grading, we show that this mechanism reduces or even avoids grade inflation. (JEL codes: I21, I23, and D82)

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Ehlers & Robert Schwager, 2016. "Honest Grading, Grade Inflation, and Reputation," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 62(3), pages 506-521.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:62:y:2016:i:3:p:506-521.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cesifo/ifv022
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martins, Pedro S., 2009. "Individual Teacher Incentives, Student Achievement and Grade Inflation," IZA Discussion Papers 4051, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Costrell, Robert M, 1994. "A Simple Model of Educational Standards," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 956-971, September.
    3. Bauer, Thomas K. & Grave, Barbara S., 2011. "Performance-related Funding of Universities: Does More Competition Lead to Grade Inflation?," IZA Discussion Papers 6073, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. , & , & ,, 2008. "Credible ratings," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(3), September.
    5. Betts, Julian R, 1998. "The Impact of Educational Standards on the Level and Distribution of Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 266-275, March.
    6. repec:zbw:rwirep:0288 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chadi, Adrian & de Pinto, Marco & Schultze, Gabriel, 2019. "Young, gifted and lazy? The role of ability and labor market prospects in student effort decisions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 66-79.
    2. Gabriele Lombardi & Giulio Ghellini, 2019. "Linking University Harshness and Students’ Choices: Sociodemographic Differences based on Italian Universities’ Characteristics," Department of Economics University of Siena 805, Department of Economics, University of Siena.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ehlers, Tim & Schwager, Robert, 2012. "Honest Grading, Grade Inflation and Reputation," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62051, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Ehlers, Tim & Schwager, Robert, 2012. "Honest grading, grade inflation and reputation," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 143, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    3. repec:got:cegedp:143 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Meier, Volker & Schiopu, Ioana, 2015. "Optimal higher education enrollment and productivity externalities in a two-sector model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 1-13.
    5. Meier, Volker & Schiopu, Ioana, 2020. "Enrollment expansion and quality differentiation across higher education systems," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 43-53.
    6. Piopiunik, Marc & Schwerdt, Guido & Woessmann, Ludger, 2013. "Central school exit exams and labor-market outcomes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 93-108.
    7. Alessandro Tampieri, 2016. "Social background effects on school and job opportunities," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 496-510, September.
    8. Rose, Heather, 2006. "Do gains in test scores explain labor market outcomes?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 430-446, August.
    9. John Bishop & Ludger Wossmann, 2004. "Institutional Effects in a Simple Model of Educational Production," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 17-38.
    10. Amadou Amadou Boly & Kole Keita & Assi Okara & Guei Guei C. Okou, 2021. "Effect of corruption on educational quantity and quality : theory and evidence," CERDI Working papers hal-03194726, HAL.
    11. Machin, Stephen & McNally, Sandra & Ruiz-Valenzuela, Jenifer, 2020. "Entry through the narrow door: The costs of just failing high stakes exams," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    12. Ludger Wößmann, 2006. "Bildungspolitische Lehren aus den internationalen Schülertests: Wettbewerb, Autonomie und externe Leistungsüberprüfung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7(3), pages 417-444, August.
    13. Dario Maldonado, 2008. "A model of school behavior: tuition fees and grading standards," Documentos de Trabajo 5106, Universidad del Rosario.
    14. Popov, Sergey V. & Bernhardt, Dan, 2010. "University Competition, Grading Standards and Grade Inflation," MPRA Paper 26461, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Cantillon, B. & De Ridder, A. & Vanhaecht, E. & Verbist, G., 2011. "(Un)desirable effects of output funding for Flemish universities," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1059-1072, October.
    16. Sumit Goel, 2022. "Optimal grading contests," Papers 2205.05207, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2023.
    17. Robert J. Gary-Bobo & Alain Trannoy, 2005. "Efficient Tuition & Fees, Examinations, and Subsidies," IDEP Working Papers 0501, Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France, revised 01 Mar 2005.
    18. Mayer-Foulkes, David, 2002. "On the dynamics of quality student enrollment at institutions of higher education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 481-489, October.
    19. Ozkan Eren & Daniel J. Henderson, 2008. "The impact of homework on student achievement," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 11(2), pages 326-348, July.
    20. Georg Graetz, 2021. "On the interpretation of diploma wage effects estimated by regression discontinuity designs," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 228-258, February.
    21. Robert Schwager, 2018. "Majority Vote on Educational Standards," CESifo Working Paper Series 6845, CESifo.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:62:y:2016:i:3:p:506-521.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.