Lecture Attendance, Self-Study and Academic Performance. A Panel Data Study

We analyze matched administrative survey data collected on economics students enrolled in two econometrics courses offered in consecutive terms at a major public university in Spain to assess the impact of class attendance and self-study hours on academic performance. Using proxy variables in a crosssectional regression setting to capture the effect of unobservable student traits possibly correlated with attendance and self-study hours, we find a positive and significant effect of attendance and self-study hours, with a substantially higher return of each additional hour of attendance. However, when we use panel data fixed-effect estimators to eliminate time-invariant individual-specific unobservables, the attendance effect disappears, while study quantity substantially increases its economic impact. These results suggest that self-study hours may be much more important than attendance as a causal determinant of academic performance.