## Class Discipline, Class Size and Scholastic Achievement Across Countries: A Theoretical and Empirical View of Educational Production

_IMF Working Papers, May 29, 2026_

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**Canonical URL:** [Class Discipline, Class Size and Scholastic Achievement Across Countries: A Theoretical and Empirical View of Educational Production](https://www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2026/05/29/class-discipline-class-size-and-scholastic-achievement-across-countries-a-theoretical-and-576422)

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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: Noam Gruber
- Published: May 29, 2026
- Series: IMF Working Papers
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798229048637.001

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### Research objective and approach
- Formulates an education production function to identify relations between discipline, class size, teaching quality, and scholastic outcomes.
- Uses estimates of student and class discipline levels to link inputs to outcomes.
- Employs a structural simulation to evaluate whether observed correlations can be explained by how schools allocate students and teachers to classes.
- Allows a break-down of the contribution of educational production factors to student achievements.

### Key empirical findings
- Both individual and class-level discipline are powerful predictors of the PISA math score.
- Variance in discipline among classmates has a strongly negative effect on scholastic outcomes.
- Class discipline is correlated with larger classes.
- Structural simulation demonstrates that the correlations observed in the data can be well explained by school allocation mechanisms (how schools allocate students and teachers to classes).

### Theoretical and analytical contributions
- Integrates discipline measures at individual and class levels into an education production framework.
- Decomposes the contribution of educational production factors (discipline, class size, teaching quality) to student achievement using empirical estimates and structural simulation.

### Subjects and keywords (as provided)
- Subjects: COVID-19, Econometric analysis, Education, Factor models, Health, Population and demographics
- Keywords: class discipline, Class Size, COVID-19, Discipline, discipline to student achievement, East Asia, Education Production, Factor models, Global, IMF working papers, International Tests, Northern Europe, PISA, Tardiness, teachers to class, Teaching Quality, Truancy

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2026/05/29/class-discipline-class-size-and-scholastic-achievement-across-countries-a-theoretical-and-576422_