TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lindo,Jason M.
AU  - Sanders,Nicholas J.
AU  - Oreopoulos,Philip
TI  - Ability, Gender, and Performance Standards: Evidence from Academic Probation
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14261
PY  - 2008
Y2  - August 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14261
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14261.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jason M. Lindo
Department of Economics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1285
Tel: 541/346-4664
E-Mail: jlindo@uoregon.edu

Nicholas J. Sanders
Stanford University
366 Galvez Street, Room 228
Stanford, CA 94305-6015
E-Mail: sandersn@stanford.edu

Philip Oreopoulos
Department of Economics
University of Toronto
150 St. George Street
Toronto, ON  M5S 3G7
Canada
E-Mail: philip.oreopoulos@utoronto.ca
AB  - We use a regression discontinuity design to examine students' responses to the negative incentive brought on by being placed on academic probation. Consistent with a model of introducing performance standards in which agents respond differently based on ability, we find that being placed on probation at the end of the first year discourages some students from returning to school while improving the performance of those who return. Contrary to the predictions of the model when ability is known, we find that heterogeneous discouragement effects result in high ability students having a greater overall dropout rate near the cutoff than lower ability students. The result can be explained by extending the model to allow for the performance standard to also affect self confidence (ability expectations). We also consider effects by gender and find that being placed on probation more than doubles the probability that men drop out but has no such discouragement effect for women.
ER  -