Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP6552
Authors: Kenn Ariga; Giorgio Brunello; Roki Iwahashi; Lorenzo Rocco
Abstract: In spite of their relative vicinity Scandinavian countries and Central European countries (mainly Germany) have substantially different schooling institutions. While the former group of countries delays school tracking until age 16, the latter group anticipates differentiation between age 10 and age 13. This paper proposes a simple median voter model of school design which accounts rather well for these differences. The key idea is that voters weight the potential advantages of early tracking in terms of higher wages and human capital against the information loss associated to early selection.
Keywords: Central Europe; Scandinavia; School Tracking
JEL Codes: I21
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| early tracking in countries like Germany (O52) | higher expected human capital (J24) |
| early tracking in countries like Germany (O52) | higher wages (J39) |
| tracked schools are more effective in producing human capital (J24) | higher expected human capital (J24) |
| quality of information provided by schools about individual ability (I24) | choice of tracking age (C52) |
| households in the Austro-German area require less time to obtain adequate information on ability (D13) | preference for earlier tracking (C92) |
| households vote on tracking length based on their preferences for equality and expected outcomes (D72) | choice of tracking age (C52) |