Beyond High School: Does the High School Economics Curriculum Make a Difference?

Abstract

Results from previous studies assessing the effect of high school economics courses on student performance in college economics courses have been inconclusive. We argue that this research fails to distinguish between high school economics courses that focus on traditional college macroeconomic and microeconomic topics and those that focus on less theoretical topics. We correct for this error by examining the relationship between the high school curriculum and knowledge of college-level economics. Although we find no evidence that students who studied high school economics are better equipped to study college economics than students who did not, we find that the curriculum does make a difference for students who have taken high school economics.