IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v30y2011i3p507-516.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

High scores but low skills

Author

Listed:
  • Liu, Liqun
  • Neilson, William S.

Abstract

In this paper college admissions are based on test scores and students can exert two types of effort: real learning and exam preparation. The former improves skills but the latter is more effective in raising test scores. In this setting the students with the lowest skills are no longer the ones with the lowest aptitude, but instead are the ones closest to the borderline for college admission. Increased access to college leads to greater income inequality between college graduates and non-graduates. Overall, the ability to study for the test leads to higher expected test scores but lower skills.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Liqun & Neilson, William S., 2011. "High scores but low skills," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 507-516, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:30:y:2011:i:3:p:507-516
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272-7757(10)00169-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Lipscomb, Stephen, 2007. "Secondary school extracurricular involvement and academic achievement: a fixed effects approach," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 463-472, August.
    2. Alm, James & Winters, John V., 2009. "Distance and intrastate college student migration," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 728-738, December.
    3. John Bound & Brad Hershbein & Bridget Terry Long, 2009. "Playing the Admissions Game: Student Reactions to Increasing College Competition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 119-146, Fall.
    4. Andrew Weiss, 1995. "Human Capital vs. Signalling Explanations of Wages," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 133-154, Fall.
    5. Hanming Fang, 2006. "Disentangling The College Wage Premium: Estimating A Model With Endogenous Education Choices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1151-1185, November.
    6. George Baker, 2002. "Distortion and Risk in Optimal Incentive Contracts," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 728-751.
    7. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2009. "The Changing Selectivity of American Colleges," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 95-118, Fall.
    8. Dennis Epple & Richard Romano & Holger Sieg, 2002. "On the Demographic Composition of Colleges and Universities in Market Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 310-314, May.
    9. Kelly, Elish & O'Connell, Philip J. & Smyth, Emer, 2010. "The economic returns to field of study and competencies among higher education graduates in Ireland," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 650-657, August.
    10. Groot, Wim & Oosterbeek, Hessel, 1994. "Earnings Effects of Different Components of Schooling: Human Capital versus Screening," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(2), pages 317-321, May.
    11. Öckert, Björn, 2010. "What's the value of an acceptance letter? Using admissions data to estimate the return to college," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 504-516, August.
    12. Grant, Darren, 2007. "Grades as information," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 201-214, April.
    13. Holger Sieg & Dennis Epple & Richard Romano, 2003. "Peer effects, financial aid and selection of students into colleges and universities: an empirical analysis," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 501-525.
    14. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    15. Yakusheva, Olga, 2010. "Return to college education revisited: Is relevance relevant?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1125-1142, December.
    16. Dennis Epple & Richard Romano & Holger Sieg, 2006. "Admission, Tuition, and Financial Aid Policies in the Market for Higher Education," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(4), pages 885-928, July.
    17. Jeff Grogger & Eric Eide, 1995. "Changes in College Skills and the Rise in the College Wage Premium," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30(2), pages 280-310.
    18. Dennis Epple & Richard Romano & Holger Sieg, 2008. "Diversity and Affirmative Action in Higher Education," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(4), pages 475-501, August.
    19. Dennis Epple & Richard Romano & Sinan Sarpaca & Holger Sieg, 2006. "Profiling in Bargaining Over College Tuition," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(515), pages 459-479, November.
    20. Edward P. Lazear, 2006. "Speeding, Terrorism, and Teaching to the Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 1029-1061.
    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. Borghans, Lex & Meijers, Huub & ter Weel, Bas, 2013. "The importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for measuring IQ," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 17-28.
    2. Verbetsky, Alexey D. (Вербецкий, Алексей) & Friedman, Alla A. (Фридман, Алла), 2016. "Universities’ Admission Policy and Student Competition [Политика Приема В Вузы И Конкуренция Абитуриентов]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 68-91, October.
    3. Chung, Keunsuk & Lee, Dongryul, 2017. "Inefficient competition in shadow-education investment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 152-165.
    4. Вербецкий Алексей Дмитриевич & Фридман Алла Александровна, 2016. "Политика Приема В Вузы И Конкуренция Абитуриентов," Economic policy Экономическая политика, CyberLeninka;Автономная некоммерческая организация «Редакция журнала “Экономическая политика”», vol. 11(5), pages 68-91.
    5. Antonello E. Scorcu & Laura Vici, 2013. "Economic and cultural factors and illegal copying in the university textbook market," ACEI Working Paper Series AWP-01-2013, Association for Cultural Economics International, revised Feb 2013.
    6. Wu, Na & Wang, Qunyong, 2018. "Wage penalty of overeducation: New micro-evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 206-217.
    7. Thiemann, Kathrin, 2017. "Ability tracking or comprehensive schooling? A theory on peer effects in competitive and non-competitive cultures," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 214-231.
    8. Borghans, Lex & Meijers, Huub & ter Weel, Bas, 2013. "The importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for measuring IQ," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 17-28.

    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. Michael Kaganovich & Sinan Sarpca & Xuejuan Su, 2020. "Competition in Higher Education: A Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 8220, CESifo.
    2. Dennis Epple & Richard Romano & Sinan Sarpça & Holger Sieg, 2013. "The U.S. Market for Higher Education: A General Equilibrium Analysis of State and Private Colleges and Public Funding Policies," NBER Working Papers 19298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Sarpça, Sinan, 2010. "Multi-dimensional skills, specialization, and oligopolistic competition in higher education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 800-811, October.
    4. Meier, Volker & Schiopu, Ioana, 2020. "Enrollment expansion and quality differentiation across higher education systems," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 43-53.
    5. Kaganovich, Michael & Sarpca, Sinan & Su, Xuejuan, 2020. "Competition in Higher Education," Working Papers 2020-3, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    6. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard & Sarpça, Sinan & Sieg, Holger, 2017. "A general equilibrium analysis of state and private colleges and access to higher education in the U.S," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 164-178.
    7. Thomas O. BRODATY & Robert J. GARY-BOBO & Ana PRIETO, 2009. "Does Speed Signal Ability , A Test of Spence's Theory," Working Papers 2009-02, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    8. W. Bentley MacLeod & Evan Riehl & Juan E. Saavedra & Miguel Urquiola, 2017. "The Big Sort: College Reputation and Labor Market Outcomes," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 223-261, July.
    9. Sevilla, Almudena & Borra, Cristina, 2015. "Parental Time Investments in Children: The Role of Competition for University Places in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 9168, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Susan Feng Lu, 2012. "Multitasking, Information Disclosure, and Product Quality: Evidence from Nursing Homes," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 673-705, September.
    11. Domadenik, Polona & Far?nik, Daša & Pastore, Francesco, 2013. "Horizontal Mismatch in the Labour Market of Graduates: The Role of Signalling," IZA Discussion Papers 7527, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Dietrichson, Jens, 2013. "Coordination Incentives, Performance Measurement and Resource Allocation in Public Sector Organizations," Working Papers 2013:26, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    13. Jing Wang & Gen Li & Kai-Lung Hui, 2022. "Monetary Incentives and Knowledge Spillover: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(5), pages 3549-3572, May.
    14. Jenny Kragl & Anja Schöttner, 2014. "Wage Floors, Imperfect Performance Measures, And Optimal Job Design," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(2), pages 525-550, May.
    15. Delfgaauw, Josse & Souverijn, Michiel, 2016. "Biased supervision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 107-125.
    16. Martin Nordin & Gawain Heckley & Ulf‐G. Gerdtham, 2020. "Impact Of A Tertiary Eligibility Threshold On Tertiary Education And Earnings: A Discontinuity Approach," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(1), pages 401-424, January.
    17. Thiele, Veikko, 2007. "Performance measurement in multi-task agencies," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 148-163, September.
    18. Bacalhau, Priscilla & Mattos, Enlinson & Ponczek, Vladimir Pinheiro, 2019. "College quality signaling and individual performance: effects on labor market outcomes after graduation," Textos para discussão 502, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    19. Bergh, Andreas & Fink, Günther, 2009. "Higher education, elite institutions and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 376-384, April.
    20. Kragl, Jenny & Schöttner, Anja, 2011. "Wage floors and optimal job design," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 01/2011, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).

    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:eee:ecoedu:v:30:y:2011:i:3:p:507-516. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    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.