Academics and policymakers have shown great interest in cross-national comparisons of intergenerational earnings mobility. However, producing consistent and comparable estimates of earnings mobility is not a trivial task. In most countries researchers are unable to observe earnings information...

Using a counterfactual approach, this paper empirically investigates the impact of an educational programme recently introduced in the Province of Trento (North-East of Italy). The aim of the policy is to foster university enrolment of students from low-income families and to reduce inequalities...

This paper focuses on mechanisms of “peer interactions” among native and non-native students. We present a theoretical framework based on Lazear (2001) education production model and on the “sub-cultural” sociological theory and we test the theoretical predictions exploiting a dataset of...

Grade retention practices are at the forefront of the educational debate. In this paper, we use PISA 2009 data for Spain to measure the effect of grade retention on students’achievement. One important problem when analyzing this question is that school outcomes and the propensity to repeat a...

Although not exclusive to the Republic of Korea’s educational system, the pervasiveness of private tutoring, and its consequences, serve to distinguish it from systems operated in other countries. However, the identification of inefficiencies linked to this phenomenon have seen the educational...

English policymakers have been disappointed with children’s performance on TIMSS and PISA, particularly in comparison to the results of young people from East Asia. In this paper we provide new insight into the England – East Asia gap by considering how cross-national differences in math...

This paper uses cross-national data to examine the effects of different dimensions of decentralization on the efficiency of educational policies in OECD countries. The results show that the autonomy of subnational governments, both on the expenditure and revenue sides of their activities, is...

We evaluate a program that introduced bilingual education in English and Spanish in primary education in some public schools of the Madrid region in 2004. Under this program students not only study English as a foreign language but also some subjects (at least Science, History and Geography) are...

This paper analyses the impact of teacher gender towards students’ test results in a blinded Math test administered to students in Catalonia (Spain). The data for this analysis are drawn from a sample of secondary school students who participated in an international blind-test known as the...

Several arguments derived from fiscal federalism theory suggest that decentralization may lead to improved levels of efficiency in the provision of public goods and services. The aim of this study is to examine this hypothesis by evaluating the effects of decentralization on educational outcomes...