arise through the strategic behavior of students and teachers, which may not affect human capital accumulation in the long … central exams positively affect adult skills. However, our estimates are small compared to the existing estimates for students …

college choices. Students with high-educated parents change timing, colleges, and fields in ways that appear consistent with … basic economic theory. In contrast, very talented students with low-educated parents react to higher scores by increasing … programs and institutions that they could have attended even with a lower score. This suggests that students with low …

increasing the informational content of grades, central exams may improve the sorting of students by productivity. To test this …, we exploit the unique German setting where students from states with and without central exams work on the same labor …

positive effects of central exams on achievement tests, previous research on university-bound students shows no effects on … subsequent earnings. We suggest that labor-market effects may be more imminent for students leaving school directly for the labor … that central exams are indeed associated with higher earnings for students from school types directly bound for the labor …