IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/iecrev/v56y2015i3p751-776.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Grading

Author

Listed:
  • Robertas Zubrickas

Abstract

The teacher–student relationship is modeled as an agency problem, where teachers are concerned with human capital formation and students with ability signaling. We distinguish between two cases depending on whether in ability inference the job market can or cannot observe the grading rule applied. We show that many empirical grading patterns, including grade compression and inflation, are all consistent with optimal ability screening when grading rules are unobservable. With observable grading rules, the teacher perfectly screens students' abilities, provided that certain conditions hold. We apply the model to discuss policy applications such as “No Child Left Behind.”

Suggested Citation

  • Robertas Zubrickas, 2015. "Optimal Grading," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(3), pages 751-776, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:56:y:2015:i:3:p:751-776
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12121
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12121
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/iere.12121?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Milgrom & Ilya Segal, 2002. "Envelope Theorems for Arbitrary Choice Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 583-601, March.
    2. Mathis, Jérôme & McAndrews, James & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2009. "Rating the raters: Are reputation concerns powerful enough to discipline rating agencies?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 657-674, July.
    3. Kelly Bedard, 2001. "Human Capital versus Signaling Models: University Access and High School Dropouts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 749-775, August.
    4. Philip Babcock & Mindy Marks, 2011. "The Falling Time Cost of College: Evidence from Half a Century of Time Use Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 468-478, May.
    5. Victor Lavy, 2009. "Performance Pay and Teachers' Effort, Productivity, and Grading Ethics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1979-2011, December.
    6. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    7. 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.
    8. Atkinson, Adele & Burgess, Simon & Croxson, Bronwyn & Gregg, Paul & Propper, Carol & Slater, Helen & Wilson, Deborah, 2009. "Evaluating the impact of performance-related pay for teachers in England," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 251-261, June.
    9. Costrell, Robert M., 1997. "Can centralized educational standards raise welfare?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 271-293, September.
    10. Riley, John G, 1979. "Testing the Educational Screening Hypothesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 227-252, October.
    11. Becker, William E. & Rosen, Sherwin, 1992. "The learning effect of assessment and evaluation in high school," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 107-118, June.
    12. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela & Xianwen Shi, 2007. "Contests for Status," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115, pages 338-363.
    13. Guesnerie, Roger & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1984. "A complete solution to a class of principal-agent problems with an application to the control of a self-managed firm," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 329-369, December.
    14. Arcidiacono, Peter, 2004. "Ability sorting and the returns to college major," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 343-375.
    15. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    16. Alessandro Lizzeri, 1999. "Information Revelation and Certification Intermediaries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(2), pages 214-231, Summer.
    17. Richard Sabot & John Wakeman-Linn, 1991. "Grade Inflation and Course Choice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 159-170, Winter.
    18. Victor Lavy, 2002. "Evaluating the Effect of Teachers' Group Performance Incentives on Pupil Achievement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1286-1317, December.
    19. Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2010. "Information Disclosure and Unraveling in Matching Markets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 34-63, May.
    20. Talia Bar & Vrinda Kadiyali & Asaf Zussman, 2009. "Grade Information and Grade Inflation: The Cornell Experiment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(3), pages 93-108, Summer.
    21. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    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. Michaelis, Jochen & Schwanebeck, Benjamin, 2016. "Examination rules and student effort," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 65-68.

    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. Martin Gregor, 2021. "Electives Shopping, Grading Policies and Grading Competition," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(350), pages 364-398, April.
    2. Kristin Butcher & Patrick McEwan & Akila Weerapana, 2022. "Making the (Letter) Grade: The Incentive Effects of Mandatory Pass/Fail Courses," NBER Working Papers 30798, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. 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.
    4. Paco Martorell & Damon Clark, 2010. "The Signaling Value of a High School Diploma," Working Papers 1248, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    5. Derek Neal, 2011. "The Design of Performance Pay in Education," NBER Working Papers 16710, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. 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.
    7. Robert Schwager, 2018. "Majority Vote on Educational Standards," CESifo Working Paper Series 6845, CESifo.
    8. Hoppe, Eva I. & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2015. "Do sellers offer menus of contracts to separate buyer types? An experimental test of adverse selection theory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 17-33.
    9. Feng, Andy & Graetz, Georg, 2017. "A question of degree: The effects of degree class on labor market outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 140-161.
    10. Ludger Wößmann, 2008. "Efficiency and equity of European education and training policies," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(2), pages 199-230, April.
    11. Michael Kaganovich & Sinan Sarpca & Xuejuan Su, 2020. "Competition in Higher Education: A Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 8220, CESifo.
    12. Valerie Bostwick, 2016. "Signaling In Higher Education: The Effect Of Access To Elite Colleges On Choice Of Major," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(3), pages 1383-1401, July.
    13. Blankenau, William F. & Gao, Yuan, 2014. "Admission standards, student effort, and the creation of skilled jobs," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 209-216.
    14. Victor Lavy, 2009. "Performance Pay and Teachers' Effort, Productivity, and Grading Ethics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1979-2011, December.
    15. Maryam Saeedi & Ali Shourideh, 2020. "Optimal Rating Design under Moral Hazard," Papers 2008.09529, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2023.
    16. Paco Martorell & Damon Clark, 2010. "The Signaling Value of a High School Diploma," Working Papers 1248, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    17. Nakabayashi, Masaki, 2011. "Schooling, employer learning, and internal labor market effect: Wage dynamics and human capital investment in the Japanese steel industry, 1930-1960s," MPRA Paper 30597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Meier, Volker & Schiopu, Ioana, 2020. "Enrollment expansion and quality differentiation across higher education systems," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 43-53.
    19. Alessandro Tampieri, 2016. "Social background effects on school and job opportunities," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 496-510, September.
    20. Seung Han Yoo, 2016. "Signaling with Two Correlated Characteristics," Discussion Paper Series 1605, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.

    More about this item

    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:wly:iecrev:v:56:y:2015:i:3:p:751-776. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.