This study estimates mean and distributional effects of early between-school ability tracking on student achievement. For identification, I exploit heterogeneity in tracking regimes between German federal states. After comprehensive primary school, about 40% of students are selected for the...

Over the 2000s, many federal states in Germany shortened the duration of secondary school by one year while keeping the curriculum unchanged. Exploiting quasi-experimental variation due to the staggered introduction of this reform allows me to identify the causal effect of increased learning...

Key date assessments are common in the contexts of firms’ hiring decisions, the educational system, and professional sports. In talent selection, it is very likely that there is a difference between current and potential performance levels. This paper analyses the Relative Age Effect (RAE) in...

Although apprenticeship training has been praised for its effectiveness in smoothing the school-to-work transition of non-college bound students, most studies rely on cross country or cross track comparisons. This study compares apprenticeship training students with non-apprentices within...

This article reviews empirical evidence on the early tracking system in Germany and the educational inequalities associated with it. Overall, the literature confirms the existence of considerable social, ethnic, gender- and age-related inequalities in secondary school track placement. Studies on...

This paper assesses educational attainment of immigrant children, in particular evaluating whether naturalised parents invest more in their children's human capital than non-naturalised parents. Findings of the literature indicate that citizenship is associated with lower return migration...

The aim of this doctoral project is an empirical analysis of questions concerning economics of education, in particular education policy. The first key aspect is the relationship between public opinion and the level of information of the population. As part of this, a first research project...

Relying on harmonized individual data for Germany and the United States, we perform a country comparison regarding the underlying mechanisms of the intergenerational income mobility. By applying descriptive and structural decomposition methods, we estimate the relative importance of the...

This paper provides evidence of a novel facet of peer effects by showing how peer personality affects educational achievement. We exploit random assignment of students to university sections and find that students perform better in the presence of more persistent peers and more risk-averse...

Over the 2000s, many federal states in Germany shortened the duration of secondary school by one year while keeping the curriculum unchanged. Exploiting quasi-experimental variation due to the staggered introduction of this reform allows me to identify the causal effect of increased learning...