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Effects of the German Universities' Excellence Initiative on Ability Sorting of Students and Perceptions of Educational Quality

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  • Mira Fischer

    (University of Cologne)

  • Patrick Kampkoetter

    (University of Cologne)

Abstract

We study the effects of a label awarded to universities for excellence in research on students' perception of educational quality and enrolment in subsequent admission terms. Using a representative student survey we find that students evaluate the teaching and supervision quality of their institution better immediately after it was labelled "excellent". Furthermore, the award of the excellence label allow universities to enrol better high school graduates in subsequent admission terms, with economics students showing the strongest response. Our results provide evidence that students use the label as a signal for educational quality that affects application decisions and reinforces ability sorting between universities, a side-effect of a policy designed to raise efficiency of universities.

Suggested Citation

  • Mira Fischer & Patrick Kampkoetter, 2014. "Effects of the German Universities' Excellence Initiative on Ability Sorting of Students and Perceptions of Educational Quality," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 05-01, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences, revised 25 Jun 2016.
    • Handle: RePEc:cgr:cgsser:05-01
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    Cited by:

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    2. Jacqmin, Julien & Lefebvre, Mathieu, 2021. "The effect of international accreditations on students’ revealed preferences: Evidence from French Business schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Julius Duker & Alexander Rieber, 2024. "Performance, Knowledge Acquisition and Satisfaction in Self-selected Groups: Evidence from a Classroom Field Experiment," Papers 2403.12694, arXiv.org.
    4. Cantner, Uwe & Grashof, Nils & Grebel, Thomas & Zhang, Xijie, 2023. "When Excellence is not Excellent: The Impact of the Excellence Initiative on the Relative Productivity of German Universities," MPRA Paper 118139, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Aloys Prinz & Thomas Ehrmann, 2022. "Academia as a league system," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(7), pages 1065-1092, September.
    6. Congbin Guo & Xiaowei Hao & Jiaqi Wu & Tizhen Hu, 2023. "The effect of national higher education initiatives on university rankings," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, December.
    7. Mira Fischer & Rainer Michael Rilke & B. Burcin Yurtoglu, 2023. "When, and why, do teams benefit from self-selection?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(4), pages 749-774, September.
    8. Biancardi, Daniele & Bratti, Massimiliano, 2019. "The effect of introducing a Research Evaluation Exercise on student enrolment: Evidence from Italy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 73-93.
    9. Biancardi, Daniele & Bratti, Massimiliano, 2018. "The Effect of the First Italian Research Evaluation Exercise on Student Enrolment Choices," IZA Discussion Papers 11302, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Krieger, Bastian, 2023. "Heterogeneous regional university funding and firm innovation: An empirical analysis of the German excellence initiative," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-006, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    higher education; university choice; student evaluations; labelling effect;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education

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