Class Size and Class Heterogeneity

Giacomo De Giorgi, Michele Pellizzari and William Gui Woolston ()
Additional contact information
William Gui Woolston: Stanford University

No 4443, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study how class size and composition affect the academic and labor market performances of college students, two crucial policy questions given the secular increase in college enrollment. We rely on the random assignment of students to teaching classes. Our results suggest that a one standard deviation increase in the class-size would result in a 0.1 standard deviation deterioration of the average grade. Further, the effect is heterogenous as female and higher income students seem almost immune to the size of the class. Also, the effects on performance of class composition in terms of gender and ability appears to be inverse U-shaped. Finally, a reduction of 20 students (one standard deviation) in one's class size has a positive effect on monthly wages of about 80 Euros (115 USD) or 6% over the average.

Keywords: class size; heterogeneity; experimental evidence; academic performance; wages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A22 I23 J30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2009-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-exp, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published - published in: Journal of the European Economic Association, 2012, 10 (4), 795 - 830

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4443.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: CLASS SIZE AND CLASS HETEROGENEITY (2012)
Working Paper: Class Size and Class Heterogeneity (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4443

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().