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Discussion Paper Details

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Title: Leave them Kids Alone! National Exams as a Political Tool

Author(s): José Mesquita Gabriel, João Pereira Santos and José Tavares

Publication Date: February 2020

Keyword(s): education, elections, Political Business Cycles and Standardized Exams

Programme Area(s): Public Economics

Abstract: This study examines whether standardized 12th grade national examination results are sensitive to coming legislative elections in Portugal. Using individual data for all exiting high school students taking national exams between the years 2004 and 2018, our empirical investigation uncovers a 1.17 and 0.63 increase, on a scale of 0 to 20, in Mathematics and Portuguese scores, respectively, in the years where the exams occurred before legislative elections. The quality of students and the leniency of grading do not explain this rise in pre-election exam grades, suggesting the difficulty of the exam in itself is at stake. Further, we show that a unit increase in the average score of Mathematics and Portuguese exams, in those years, leads to a 1.46 percentage point rise in the vote share of the seating government.

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Bibliographic Reference

Mesquita Gabriel, J, Pereira Santos, J and Tavares, J. 2020. 'Leave them Kids Alone! National Exams as a Political Tool'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=14374