We present evidence that the practice of holding back poorly performing students affects estimates of the impact of class size on student outcomes based on within-school variation of cohort size over time. This type of variation is commonly used to identify class size effects. We build a...

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...

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...

Kleinere Klassen in der Grundschule führen zu besseren Leistungen in den Fächern Deutsch und Mathematik. Außerdem senken sie die Wahrscheinlichkeit, eine Klasse wiederholen zu müssen. Dies zeigt die vorliegende Analyse der Testresultate von mehr als 38.000 SchülerInnen, die Daten der...

We present evidence that the practice of holding back poorly performing students affects estimates of the impact of class size on student outcomes based on within-school variation of cohort size over time. This type of variation is commonly used to identify class size effects. We build a...

We present evidence that the practice of holding back poorly performing students affects estimates of the impact of class size on student outcomes based on within-school variation of cohort size over time. This type of variation is commonly used to identify class size effects. We build a...

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...

This paper studies heterogeneity in schooling decisions by socio-economic status (SES) in response to a repeal of achievement-based admissions requirements (i.e. binding track recommendations) in Germany's between-school tracking system. The main contribution is to show that while previously...

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...