TY - JOUR T1 - The Evolution of the School-Entry Age Effect in a School Tracking System JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 407 LP - 438 DO - 10.3368/jhr.45.2.407 VL - 45 IS - 2 AU - Andrea M. Mühlenweg AU - Patrick A. Puhani Y1 - 2010/03/01 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/45/2/407.abstract N2 - In Germany, students are streamed at age ten into an academic or non-academic track. We demonstrate that the randomly allocated disadvantage of being born just before as opposed to just after the cutoff date for school entry leads to substantially different schooling experiences. Relatively young students are initially only two-thirds as likely to be assigned to the academic track. The possibility to defer tracking to age 12 does not attenuate school-entry age’s effect on track attendance. Some mitigation of the effect occurs only at the second time when educational institutions facilitate track modification when students are about age 16. ER -