Students’ Social Origins and Targeted Grading

Abstract

We study an economy where a school can target grades according to students’social groups, and privileged students are more likely to obtain a high academic achievement. In this context, we analyse the welfare effects of introducing alternative policies. Banning targeted grading generally maximises welfare, through an increase in the wage of privileged students. This result does not hold though when the proportion of high achievers is large, and labour demand is high. In this case, banning wage discrimination among social groups maximises welfare, through an increase in the wages of underprivileged students.