Students' behavioural response to the introduction of the "langstudeerdersmaatregel"

In 2011 the `langstudeerdersmaatregel' was introduced as a way to cut budgets on education and improve student performance. Students studying longer than the nominal duration plus a one year buer were required to pay a ne of e3,063 per year. This paper evaluates the behavioural (anticipatory) eects of the measure as all nancial eects were compensated at its abolishment in 2012. A quasi-natural experiment is evaluated, making use of a dierent policy measure (`Bachelor-before-Master' act) as source of exogenous variation. For sake of comparison between universities only bachelor's students are considered. A dierences-in-dierences set-up is employed in order to estimate the policy's eects on graduation rates. Signicant eects were found for fth year students only.