Does the early bird catch the worm?

authored by

Patrick A. Puhani, Andrea M. Weber

Abstract

We estimate the effect of age of school entry on educational outcomes using two different data sets for Germany, sampling pupils at the end of primary school and in the middle of secondary school. Results are obtained based on instrumental variable estimation exploiting the exogenous variation in month of birth. We find robust and significant positive effects on educational outcomes for pupils who enter school at 7 instead of 6 years of age: test scores at the end of primary school increase by about 0.40 standard deviations and the probability to attend the highest secondary schooling track (Gymnasium) increases by about 12% points.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Labour Economics

External Organisation(s)

University of St. Gallen (HSG)
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Technische Universität Darmstadt

Type

Article

Journal

Empirical economics

Volume

32

Pages

359-386

No. of pages

28

ISSN

0377-7332

Publication date

05.2007

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Statistics and Probability, Mathematics (miscellaneous), Social Sciences (miscellaneous), Economics and Econometrics

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-006-0089-y (Access: Closed)