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Estimating the benefit of high school for university‐bound students: evidence of subject‐specific human capital accumulation
Author(s) -
Morin LouisPhilippe
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
canadian journal of economics/revue canadienne d'économique
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.773
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1540-5982
pISSN - 0008-4085
DOI - 10.1111/caje.12019
Subject(s) - human capital , mathematics education , value (mathematics) , subject (documents) , scale (ratio) , measure (data warehouse) , school education , capital (architecture) , point (geometry) , pedagogy , sociology , psychology , economics , mathematics , computer science , statistics , economic growth , geography , library science , geometry , archaeology , database , cartography
Numerous studies suggest that the value of high school education is large for potential dropouts, yet we know much less about the benefits for students who will go on to post‐secondary education. To help fill this gap I measure, using a recent Ontario high school reform, the value‐added (in terms of university grades) of an extra year of high‐school mathematics for university‐bound students. The estimated benefit is small for these students: 2.3 points on a 100‐point scale. This evidence helps to explain why the literature has found only modest effects of taking more mathematics in high school on wages.