The DOI matches its Crossref record; 16 of the 16 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
U.S. High School Graduation Rates: Patterns and Explanations
Abstract
I survey the evidence on patterns in U.S. high school graduation rates over the period 1970–2010 and report the results of new research conducted to fill in holes in the evidence. I begin by pointing out the strengths and limitations of existing data sources. I then describe six striking patterns in graduation rates. They include stagnation over the last three decades of the twentieth century, significant race-, income-, and gender-based gaps, and significant increases in graduation rates over the first decade of the twenty-first century, especially among blacks and Hispanics. I then describe the models economists use to explain the decisions of individuals to invest in schooling, and examine the extent to which the parameters of the models explain recent patterns in graduation rates. I find that increases in the nonmonetary costs of completing high school and the increasing availability of the GED credential help to explain stagnation in the face of substantial gaps between the wages of high school graduates and school dropouts. I point out that there are several hypotheses, but to date, very little evidence to explain the increases in high school graduation rates over the first decade of the twenty-first century. I conclude by reviewing the evidence on effective strategies to increase high school graduation rates, and explaining why the causal evidence is quite modest. (JEL I21, J15, J16)
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Citations
Cites
The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration
Autor, D. H., Levy, F., & Murnane, R. J. (2003) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/003355303322552801 · Cited by 6,205
Self-citationThe effects of cognitive and noncognitive abilities on labor market outcomes and social behavior
Heckman, J. J., Stixrud, J., & Urzua, S. (2006) · Journal of Labor Economics · doi:10.1086/504455 · Cited by 4,427
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How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project Star
Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., Hilger, N., Saez, E., Schanzenbach, D. W., & Yagan, D. (2011) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qjr041 · Cited by 1,514
The importance of noncognitive skills: lessons from the GED testing program
Heckman, J. J., & Rubinstein, Y. (2001) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.91.2.145 · Cited by 1,488
Formulating, Identifying and Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation
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The rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program
Heckman, J. J., Moon, S. H., Pinto, R., Savelyev, P. A., & Yavitz, A. (2010) · Journal of Public Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2009.11.001 · Cited by 1,341 · cited 1×
“See Heckman et al. (2010) for a summary of benefits from the Perry Preschool program. and primary school years (Reynolds et al. 2011).”
Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School
Fryer, R. G., & Levitt, S. D. (2004) · Review of Economics and Statistics · doi:10.1162/003465304323031049 · Cited by 936
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No Child Left Behind: Subsidized Child Care and Children's Long-Run Outcomes
Havnes, T., & Mogstad, M. (2011) · American Economic Journal: Economic Policy · doi:10.1257/pol.3.2.97 · Cited by 579
Cited by
Skills, education, and the rise of earnings inequality among the “other 99 percent”
Autor, D. H. (2014) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1251868 · Cited by 1,160
Jackson, C. K., Johnson, R. C., & Persico, C. (2016) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qjv036 · Cited by 805
No Child Left Behind: Subsidized Child Care and Children's Long-Run Outcomes
Havnes, T., & Mogstad, M. (2011) · American Economic Journal: Economic Policy · doi:10.1257/pol.3.2.97 · Cited by 579
Family Disadvantage and the Gender Gap in Behavioral and Educational Outcomes
Autor, D., Figlio, D., Karbownik, K., Roth, J., & Wasserman, M. (2019) · American Economic Journal: Applied Economics · doi:10.1257/app.20170571 · Cited by 314
Agasisti, T., & Bowers, A. J. (2017) · Handbook of Contemporary Education Economics · doi:10.4337/9781785369070.00014 · Cited by 83
Metadata
- Authors
- Murnane, R. J.
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Literature
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2013-06-01
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 370-422
- ISSN
- 0022-0515 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2122450380
- Cited by
- 259
- References
- 16
- FWCI
- 145.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
