Intended and Unintended Short-run Effects of the Introduction of CEE in Germany

Evidence from a Difference-in-Differences Approach

We investigate the effects of a recent education policy reform in Germany, where a number of federal states have gradually introduced CEEs at different times for different types of secondary school certificates. We evaluate this policy reform in a DiD framework, particularly focusing on possible short-run effects. To this end, we pool data from the 2000, 2003 and 2006 cycles of the German extensions of the Programme for International Student Assessment. Using this repeated cross-section of 15 year old students, we find that the introduction of CEEs has led to small increases in mathematics performance. Moreover, our findings suggest that the introduction of CEEs did not improve performance of students who do not have a German-born parent, indicating negative effects on the equality of opportunities in the short run.