IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc13/79971.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Majority Vote on Educational Standards

Author

Listed:
  • Schwager, Robert

Abstract

The direct democratic choice of an examination standard, i.e., a performance level required to graduate, is evaluated against a utilitarian welfare function. It is shown that the median preferred standard is inefficiently low if the marginal cost of reaching a higher performance reacts more sensitively to ability for high than for low abilities, and if the right tail of the ability distribution is longer than the left tail. Moreover, a high number of agents who choose not to graduate may imply that the median preferred standard is inefficiently low even if these conditions fail.

Suggested Citation

  • Schwager, Robert, 2013. "Majority Vote on Educational Standards," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79971, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc13:79971
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/79971/1/VfS_2013_pid_927.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Popov, Sergey V. & Bernhardt, Dan, 2010. "University Competition, Grading Standards and Grade Inflation," MPRA Paper 26461, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Lydia Mechtenberg, 2006. "Cheap Talk in the Classroom," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2006-019, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    3. Oliver Himmler & Robert Schwager, 2013. "Double Standards in Educational Standards – Do Schools with a Disadvantaged Student Body Grade More Leniently?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 14(2), pages 166-189, May.
    4. Sergey V. Popov & Dan Bernhardt, 2013. "University Competition, Grading Standards, And Grade Inflation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(3), pages 1764-1778, July.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Oliver Himmler & Robert Schwager, 2013. "Double Standards in Educational Standards – Do Schools with a Disadvantaged Student Body Grade More Leniently?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 14(2), pages 166-189, May.
    8. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2002. "Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661314, December.
    9. Lydia Mechtenberg, 2009. "Cheap Talk in the Classroom: How Biased Grading at School Explains Gender Differences in Achievements, Career Choices and Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1431-1459.
    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. Stefano STAFFOLANI & Maria Cristina RECCHIONI, 2016. "Increasing Graduation and Calling for More Autonomy in Higher Education: Is It a Good Thing? A Theoretical Model," Working Papers 419, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.

    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. Robert Schwager, 2018. "Majority Vote on Educational Standards," CESifo Working Paper Series 6845, CESifo.
    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. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Alessandro Tampieri, 2016. "Social background effects on school and job opportunities," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 496-510, September.
    7. Onuchic, Paula & Ray, Debraj, 2023. "Conveying value via categories," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(4), November.
    8. Stefano STAFFOLANI & Maria Cristina RECCHIONI, 2016. "Increasing Graduation and Calling for More Autonomy in Higher Education: Is It a Good Thing? A Theoretical Model," Working Papers 419, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    9. Schwager, Robert, 2012. "Grade inflation, social background, and labour market matching," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 56-66.
    10. Jill Johnes, 2018. "University rankings: What do they really show?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 585-606, April.
    11. Sumit Goel, 2022. "Optimal grading contests," Papers 2205.05207, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2023.
    12. Coenen, J. & Van Klaveren, C., 2013. "Better test scores with a same-gender teacher?," Working Papers 47, Top Institute for Evidence Based Education Research.
    13. Sergey V. Popov & Dan Bernhardt, 2013. "University Competition, Grading Standards, And Grade Inflation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(3), pages 1764-1778, July.
    14. Inácio Bó & Chiu Yu Ko, 2021. "Competitive screening and information transmission," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(3), pages 407-437, June.
    15. Jacopo Bizzotto & Adrien Vigier, 2022. "Sorting and Grading," Papers 2208.10894, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    16. Maria Mercedes Teijeiro Álvarez (ed.), 2013. "Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación," E-books Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación, Asociación de Economía de la Educación, edition 1, volume 8, number 08.
    17. Simon Burgess & Ellen Greaves, 2013. "Test Scores, Subjective Assessment, and Stereotyping of Ethnic Minorities," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(3), pages 535-576.
    18. De Witte, Kristof & Geys, Benny & Solondz, Catharina, 2014. "Public expenditures, educational outcomes and grade inflation: Theory and evidence from a policy intervention in the Netherlands," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 152-166.
    19. Jacopo Bizzotto & Adrien Vigier, 2022. "A Case for Tiered School Systems," Working Papers 202205, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo Business School.
    20. Manuel Salas Velasco, 2011. "More than just good grades: candidates’ perceptions about the skills and attributes employers seek in new graduates," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 499-517, June.
    21. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:vfsc13:79971. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.