School starting age and academic achievement: Evidence from China's junior high schools

- This paper examines the effect of school starting age on cognitive scores of junior high school students in China.
- We find that a one-year delay in school entry is associated with a 0.303 decrease in standard deviation of test scores.
- The negative effect of starting age is caused by human capital accumulation prior to primary school entry.

This paper examines the effect of school starting age on the academic achievement of junior high school students using the newly available data from the China Education Panel Survey. Regression discontinuity design estimation based on an exogenous entrance cutoff date indicates that a one-year delay is associated with a 0.303 decrease in standard deviations of cognitive scores. However, this negative effect is caused by human capital accumulation prior to primary school entry.