Most school systems grant teachers and school principals considerable discretion in grade retention decisions. This paper argues that schools can exploit this discretion by selectively retaining students to reduce class size which potentially has important implications for public spending on...

We show that in school systems with grade retention or redshirting, birth cohort size is negatively related to the grade-level share of students who are too old for their grade. This compositional effect gives rise to an upward bias in estimates of class size effects based on commonly used...

In this paper, we estimate the effect of pupil?s relative age within the first grade of primary school on math and reading test scores at age 15. The main objective is to evaluate the long-term causal effect of relative age in the first grades of primary school on pupil?s test in 16 different...

In this paper, we estimate the effect of pupil?s relative age within the first grade of primary school on math and reading test scores at age 15. The main objective is to evaluate the long-term causal effect of relative age in the first grades of primary school on pupil?s test in 16 different...

Educational opportunities determine the intergenerational mobility of human capital and are affected by institutional features of schooling systems. The aim of this paper is twofold. It intends to show how strongly student performance depends on student background at two important stages in a...

Educational opportunities determine the intergenerational mobility of human capital and are affected by institutional features of schooling systems. The aim of this paper is twofold. It intends to show how strongly student performance depends on student background at two important stages in a...

Increasing participation rates in pupil surveys has become an important challenge for empirical educational research. In this paper we investigate whether combining a monetary incentive with a personalised invitation to participate in a survey increases the response rate of secondary school...