Although a direct relationship among partial withdrawals (Ws), GPA and grade inflation (GI) is suggested in prior research, this study demonstrates just the opposite. Evidence from a detailed panel-data comprising 34,426 sections offered in the UPR-Bayamón during 36 consecutive terms...

Although grade inflation is unfair and may imply inefficient allocation of human resources, current knowledge of grade inflation effects on individual outcomes is scarce. One explanation is probably the challenge of measuring and estimating causal grade inflation effects. This study examines the...

At the private university we analyze, the gap between white and black grade point averages falls by half between the students' freshmen and senior year. This outcome could suggest that affirmative action policies are playing a key role to reduce racial differences. However, this convergence...

Previous work on the relation between school inputs and students' educational attainment typically fails to account for the fact that schools can adjust their grading structure, even though such actions are likely to affect students' incentives. Our theoretical model shows that, depending on...

Previous work on the relation between school inputs and students' educational attainment typically fails to account for the fact that schools can adjust their grading structure, even though such actions are likely to affect students' incentives. Our theoretical model shows that, depending on...

This paper documents a startling difference in the grading standards between education departments and other academic departments at universities – undergraduate students in education classes receive significantly higher grades than students in all other classes. This phenomenon cannot be...

This study examines a channel, students’ nuisance, to explain grade inflation. "Students’ nuisance" is defined by "students’ pestering the professors for better grades." This paper contains two parts: the game theoretic model and the empirical tests. The model shows that the potential...

Assuming that teachers are concerned with human capital formation and students - with ability signaling, in this paper we model a teacher-student relationship as an agency problem with conflicting interests. In our model, the teacher elicits effort from the student rewarding for it with a grade,...

Although a direct relationship among partial withdrawals (Ws), GPA and grade inflation (GI) is suggested in prior research, this study demonstrates just the opposite. Evidence from a detailed panel-data comprising 34,426 sections offered in the UPR-Bayamón during 36 consecutive terms...

This study investigates how being exposed to a field of study influences students' major choices. We exploit a natural experiment at a Swiss university where all first-year students face largely the same curriculum before they choose a major. An important component of the first-year curriculum...