TY  - JOUR
AU  - Papay,John P.
AU  - Murnane,Richard J.
AU  - Willett,John B.
TI  - How Performance Information Affects Human-Capital Investment Decisions: The Impact of Test-Score Labels on Educational Outcomes
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17120
PY  - 2011
Y2  - June 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17120
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17120.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John Papay
Brown University
Education Department
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 617-493-3942
E-Mail: john_papay@mail.harvard.edu

Richard Murnane
Graduate School of Education
Harvard University
6 Appian Way - Gutman 469
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/496-4820
Fax: 617/496-3095
E-Mail: richard_murnane@harvard.edu

John Willett
Graduate School of Education
Harvard University
6 Appian Way - Gutman 412
Cambridge, MA 02138
E-Mail: John_Willett@harvard.edu
AB  - Students receive abundant information about their educational performance, but how this information affects future educational-investment decisions is not well understood. Increasingly common sources of information are state-mandated standardized tests. On these tests, students receive a score and a label that summarizes their performance. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we find persistent effects of earning a more positive label on the college-going decisions of urban, low-income students. Consistent with a Bayesian-updating model, these effects are concentrated among students with weaker priors, specifically those who report before taking the test that they do not plan to attend a four-year college.
ER  -