Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

This paper examines the effect of the introduction of automatic grade promotion on student performance in 1,993 public primary schools in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. A difference-in-difference approach that exploits variation over time in the adoption of the policy allows the identification of the treatment effect of automatic promotion. I find a negative and significant effect of about 6% of a standard deviation on math test scores. Under plausible identifying assumptions the estimates can be interpreted as the disincentive effect on student effort associated with the introduction of automatic promotion.