Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/201472 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2019:8
Publisher: 
Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU), Uppsala
Abstract: 
In Sweden, females outperform males on compulsory and high school GPAs by a third of a standard deviation, while males outperform females on the Swedish SAT by the same magnitude. We establish that GPAs capture different attributes and skills compared to SAT scores. Differences in motivation and effort explain up to 60 percent of the female advantage in GPAs, while cognitive skills explain 40 percent of the male advantage in SAT scores. The latter is accounted for by differential self-selection into taking the SAT. Our findings imply large effects of the choice of university admission criterion on admitted students' characteristics.
Subjects: 
gender gaps
student assessment
cognitive skills
non-cognitive skills
university admissions
JEL: 
I21
I24
J16
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
422.22 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.