Efficiency and Equity in Education: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from School Reforms across German States (Effee)

Tasks

German states (Länder) reformed many important aspects of their school systems over the post-war period. Examples include the introduction or abolition of grading during the early years of elementary school, grading of social behavior (attitudes), the binding character of school track recommendations, religion as a compulsory subject, and compulsory STEM subjects until graduation. How did such reforms affect the academic achievement and socio-emotional development of affected students and their life-course outcomes? This project is being conducted in cooperation with the WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

Methodology

In order to evaluate the impact of German school reforms, the project will apply appropriate, up-to-date micro-econometric techniques. In particular, the difference-in-differences approach will be applied for causal analysis of the effects.

Data and other sources

The project will use administrative data (e.g. Microcensus) as well as survey data (e.g. SOEP) and results of standardized student achievement tests (e.g. PISA). An important common feature of all datasets is the availability of an identifier of the German state in which the surveyed persons reside.