We examine how selected high school characteristics – including type of diploma – contribute to students' academic success in an American-type university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We find no robust evidence that US, UK, and UAE systems of high school diploma produce different...

This study investigates how being exposed to a field of study influences students' major choices. We exploit a natural experiment at a Swiss university where all first-year students face largely the same curriculum before they choose a major. An important component of the first-year curriculum...

In the information age an exchange with the media is part of the duties the economics profession has to deliver to educate the public and to ensure its position in society. A key issue is the education of policymakers through the media. It is the silver bullet of policy advice in comparison to...

This paper analyzes the impact of a leading entrepreneurship education program on college students’ entrepreneurship competencies and intentions using an instrumental variables approach in a difference-in-differences framework. We exploit that the program was offered to students at one...

The external circumstances for universities have been changing rapidly. In order to be competitive, survive, and flourish, universities have shown a growing enthusiasm to generate financial revenues externally. The literature refers to this phenomenon as academic capitalism, defined as the...

Over the last decade, many countries have experienced dramatic increases in university enrolment, which, when not matched by compensating increases in other inputs, have resulted in larger class sizes. Using administrative records from a leading UK university, we present evidence on the effects...

Previous research shows that firms shroud high add-on prices in competitive markets with naive consumers leading to inefficiency. We analyze the effects of regulatory intervention via educating naive consumers on equilibrium prices and welfare. Our model allows firms to shroud, unshroud, or...

This paper provides a systematic empirical investigation of the effect of product market liberalization on employment when there are interactions between policies and institutions in product and labor markets. Using panel data for OECD countries over the period 1980-2002, we present evidence...

We examine the macroeconomic consequences of industry wage bargaining and product market reforms. We suggest that general equilibrium effects may be important for the evaluation of industry-specific regulations. In particular, we suggest that the European unemployment problem can be traced back...

We model entry by entrepreneurs into new markets in developing economies with regulatory barriers in the form of licence fees and bureaucratic delay. Because laissez faire leads to ‘excessive’ entry, a licence fee can increase welfare by discouraging entry. However, in the presence of a...