Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/35221 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 3495
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We exploit an exogenous increase in General Educational Development (GED) testing requirements to determine whether raising the difficulty of the test causes students to finish high school rather than drop out and GED certify. We find that a six point decrease in GED pass rates induces a 1.3 point decline in overall dropout rates. The effect size is also much larger for older students and minorities. Finally, a natural experiment based on the late introduction of the GED in California reveals, that adopting the program increased the dropout rate by 3 points more relative to other states during the mid-1970s.
Subjects: 
GED
dropout
JEL: 
C61
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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