This paper uses administrative longitudinal micro data on the universe of Junior High school students in Uruguay to measure the effect of grade failure on students' subsequent school outcomes. Exploiting the discontinuity induced by a rule establishing automatic grade failure for pupils missing...

This paper explores the relationship between ethnic diversity and local school funding in Kenyan primary schools. The empirical results paint a picture of pervasive local collective action problems in ethnically diverse Kenyan primary schools. Local ethnic diversity is robustly associated with...

The finance of higher education faces a clash between technological advance, driving up the demand for skills, and fiscal constraints, given competing imperatives for public spending. Paying for universities is also immensely politically sensitive. This paper sets out core lessons for financing...

Many firms encourage employees to own company stock through share plans that subsidizethe price at favorable rates, but even so many employees do not buy shares. Using a newsurvey of employees in a multinational with a share ownership plan, we find considerablevariation in joining among...

Understanding how higher education (HE) finance policy can affect HE decisions is important for understanding how governments can promote human capital accumulation. Yet there is a severe lack of evidence on the effectiveness of student aid in encouraging HE participation outside of the US, and...

The combination of spending cuts, efforts to protect the poorest from some of their effects, and ‘localised’ decision-making are leading to an increase in the numbers of means tests designed by lower level institutions. This paper examines a case study of the effects of this, looking at the...

Empirical papers studying the effects of neighbourhood characteristics on socio-economic variables have predominantly used US data. We argue that the local nature of the US schooling system means that neighbourhood effects on education decisions may act through fiscal or social channels. We use...

The high school exit exam (HSEE) is rapidly becoming a standardized assessment procedure for educational accountability in the United States. I use a unique state-specific dataset to identify the effect of failing the HSEE on the likelihood that a student drops out early based on a Regression...

Individuals and business owners engage in an increasingly complex array of financial decisions that are critical for their success and well-being. Yet a growing literature documents that in both developed and developing countries, a large fraction of the population is unprepared to make these...