Performance-Based Rankings and School Quality

Abstract

I study students' inferences about school quality from performance-based rankings in a dynamic setting. Schools differ in location and unobserved quality, students differ in location and ability. Short-lived students observe a school ranking as a signal about schools' relative quality, but this signal also depends on the ability of schools' past intakes. Students apply to schools, trading off expected quality against proximity. Oversubscribed schools select applicants based on an admission rule. In steady-state equilibrium, I find that rankings are more informative if oversubscribed schools select more able applicants or if students care less about distance to school.