%0 Report
        %A Souder, Mael Astruc–Le
%A Bargain, Olivier B.
%A Locks, Gedeao
        %T A Question of Honor? The Labor Market  Advantage of Academic Signaling
        %D 2026
        %8 2026 Apr
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 18567
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18567
        %X As tertiary education expands, employers increasingly rely on academic distinctions to screen among similarly qualified graduates. We study the labor-market effects of honors using administrative and survey data on Sorbonne master’s graduates. We exploit France’s fixed GPA thresholds for honors assignment to implement a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. Returns are concentrated at the intermediate distinction (“High Honors”), indicating that credentials are most informative when they separate above- from below-average students. We find that High Honors accelerate school-to-work transitions, increasing the monthly job-finding rate by about 40%. Honors also generate an initial wage premium, which fades within two years, and lead to persistent improvements in job quality, including greater access to master’s-level positions and faster transitions to permanent contracts. These results highlight the role of academic distinctions as short-run signals that shape early career allocation rather than long-term earnings.
        %K signaling
%K honors
%K regression discontinuity design
%K fuzzy RDD