Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/200635 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) No. 623
Publisher: 
Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, Hannover
Abstract: 
We use administrative panel data on about a quarter of a million students in the German state of Hesse to estimate the causal effect of class size on school tracking outcomes after elementary school. Our identification strategy relies on the quasi-random assignment of students to different class sizes based on maximum class size rules. In Germany, students are tracked into more or less academic middle school types at about age ten based, to a large extent, on academic achievement in elementary school. We mostly find no or small effects of class size in elementary school on receiving a recommendation or on the actual choice to attend the more academic middle school type. For male students, we find that an increase in class size by 10 students would reduce their chance of attending the higher school track-which more than 40 percent of students attend-by 3 percentage points.
Subjects: 
class size
panel
administrative data
education production
JEL: 
I21
I28
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
376.65 kB





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