Abstract

Around 2010, 8 out of 16 German federal states adjusted the level of school separation. While some states expanded the availability of comprehensive schools, others merged basic and middle schools, thereby dissolving the three-tier German secondary school system and introducing a two-tier system. We leverage this variation in adjustment and non-adjustment to analyze the effect of de-tracking (the merging of two previously separate educational tracks) on short- and medium-term labor market outcomes. For this analysis, we use the IEB and WGH datasets from the IAB.