Oliver Cassagneau-Francis

UCL CEPEO Autumn Seminar Series 2025 The effect of university grade inflation on graduate outcomes Dr Judith Delaney (University of Bath) Thursday 27th November 2025, 3pm (UK Time) #CEPEOSeminarSeries

There's still time to register for this week's CEPEO seminar!

We are hosting Dr Judith Delaney from University of Bath who will presenting work on the effect of university grade inflation on graduate outcomes

REGISTER NOW: ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Our method is straightforward to implement and applicable in any setting with subjective assessments and a way to identify marginal assessees!

Take a look at the paper for more info.
econpapers.repec.org/paper/uclcep...

7/7

We can also study heterogeneity by subject and grade boundary:

We find more bias in subjects where teachers have more discretion (prior attainment is less informative)

There is heterogeneity by grade boundary but no clear patterns

6/7

Our findings are robust to a load of different specifications and samples -- our main analysis uses ALL marginal students (ranked adjacent to a boundary) across all subjects and boundaries

5/7

We find teachers favour female students over male and high-SES over lower SES -- inline with previous work

Crucially we find no effect at "placebo" grade boundaries between adjacent students within an assessed grade

4/7

We check for gender/SES/ethnicity balance across grade boundaries, using only the most marginal students (as ranked by their teachers) -- like an RDD balance test but with a twist, as our running variable is ordinal

3/7

We estimate bias directly, without comparing blind and non-blind assessments, so without the usual assumptions.

Our unique data comes from when high-stakes A-level exams were cancelled in 2020, and replaced by teacher-assessed grades and ranks

2/7

We provide new evidence -- via a brand new method !! -- on the issue of bias in teacher assessments. Very relevant right now, with many US colleges going "test-optional" and implicitly relying on (teacher assessed) GPA

1/7

🚨🚨New working paper!! 🚨🚨

"Measuring gaps in teacher judgements: A new approach"

with @lindseymacmillan.bsky.social, @richmurphy-econ.bsky.social and @gillwyness.bsky.social

Read the paper here: econpapers.repec.org/paper/uclcep...

🧵below

My colleague Gill has written a great thread on our new WP out today which documents huge gaps in university match across students from private vs state schools in the UK.

🧵⬇️

Gill has written a great thread on our @iza.org WoL article which came out last week. Read the thread then read the paper

🚨🚨 Seminar this Thursday at 3PM 🚨🚨

Join us to hear @mattdickson.bsky.social talk about what happened to human capital and labour market returns when England raised the school-leaving age to 18!

Register here to join online: ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

📢 New report out today 📢

Interested in social mobility, gender & racial inequalities in access to professional careers?

➡️ Report: repec-cepeo.ucl.ac.uk/cepeow/cepeo...
➡️ Blog post: blogs.ucl.ac.uk/cepeo/2025/0...

By @lindseymacmillan.bsky.social, @clairetyler.bsky.social, and C. Dilnot

💡CEPEO Seminar coming up next week! 💡

We are very lucky to have Silke Anger from Institute for Employment Research (IAB) presenting her work on offering high school students access to assistance from professional career counselors.

Thursday 27th Feb, sign up here:

ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

⌛Last few places remaining for our popular NPD training course. Online next Monday and Tuesday mornings (3/4 March) and free thanks to the generous support of ADRUK.

Sign up: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cepeo-adru...

Ready for our first seminar of 2025?

"It’s alright for some: Are the effects of school exclusion heterogeneous?"

Andrew McClean will discuss his work examining the effects of school exclusion.

📅Join us 23rd Jan, 3-4pm. Online or in person at UCL.

➡️Sign up here: www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/events/2...

We're delighted to be welcoming Dr Matthew Easterbrook to give our next @cepeo-ucl.bsky.social seminar at 3pm on Thursday.

He'll be talking about the importance of local context for understanding educational inequalities and intervention effectiveness

Sign-up: ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Join us this Thursday for our next CEPEO seminar.

We will be hosting Dr Anna Raute from QMUL, who will share her latest research on family-friendly workplace policies.

When: Thurs 28th Nov 3-4pm
Where: Online or Room G1 25-26 Woburn Square, London
More info & sign up: ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

📈New @cepeo-ucl.bsky.social /CVER @cep-lse.bsky.social working paper 📉

The mismatch earnings penalty

with @lindseymacmillan.bsky.social @richmurphy-econ.bsky.social Konstantina Maragkou and Chiara Cavaglia

econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucl:cepeow…

📈📉

Policy priorities The aim of our policy priorities is to offer evidence-led, practical steps to move towards a society of more equal opportunities from early years to adulthood.

We are pleased to see strong investment in education, including to attract and retain teachers, in today's budget. It is a proven, long-term driver of growth and the budget starts to deliver against some of our CEPEO evidence-based policy priorities: www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departme...

💼New @cepeo-ucl.bsky.social working paper 💼

Individuals from low SES backgrounds enter less prestigious & lower earning occupations than those from high SES backgounds, even with the same qualifications.

New from @gillwyness.bsky.social @lindseymacmillan.bsky.social & @richmurphy-econ.bsky.social

🚨🚨New CEPEO WP from our very own @jakeanders.uk and Erica Holt-White (Sutton Trust) which highlights growing inequalities in wellbeing and mental health following the pandemic using data from the COSMO study.
WP here: econpapers.repec.org/paper/uclcep...
🧵here: bsky.app/profile/jake...

🚨🚨New briefing note by @gillwyness.bsky.social and @richmurphy-econ.bsky.social on the HE funding problem and some possible solutions:
🥇Restore maintenance grants
🥈Phased fee increases
🥉Don't scrap the current system: its fundamentals are good
Read it here 👉
econpapers.repec.org/paper/uclcep...

🚨🚨Our next CEPEO seminar will be on the 17 October hosted by the Department for Education. CEPEO visitor Rich Murphy is presenting his work on teacher judgements. Sign up at the link below to join us online!
ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

a colorful fireworks display with the words happy birthday in the center ALT: a colorful fireworks display with the words happy birthday in the center

CEPEO is 5 years old! 🎂🎉

This week we'll be celebrating with a 5 year anniversary recap of some our working papers, briefing notes and blog posts!

Stay tuned 📻

Myself and @richmurphy-econ.bsky.social have written and thought a lot about HE finance. Here is our take on the current problems facing the sector:
1. Restore maintenance grants
2. Begin phased restoration of fees/maintenance loans
3. Dont scrap the current system: it's fundamentals are good