This paper analyzes peer effects among university scientists. Specifically, it investigates whether the number of peers and their average quality affects the productivity of researchers in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The usual endogeneity problems related to estimating peer effects are...

We investigate the rapid influx of overseas students into UK higher education and the impact on the number of domestic students. Using administrative data since 1994/5, we find no evidence of crowd out of domestic undergraduate students and indications of increases in the domestic numbers of...

Gaps in welfare attainment between boys and girls in China have attracted international attention. In this paper demand analysis is used to try and uncover the factors which may be driving the emergence of the gender gaps. Drawing on household expenditure data from a poor (Sichuan) and rich...

This paper tests if gender-discrimination in grading affects pupils' achievements and course choices. I use a unique dataset containing grades given by teachers, scores obtained anonymously by pupils at different ages, and their course choice during high school. Based on double-differences, the...

Labour market discrimination against women and parental discrimination against daughters are two of the most commonly cited explanations of the gender gap in education in developing countries. This study empirically tests the labour market explanation for India using household survey data...

Participation rates in higher education differ persistently between some groups in society. Using two British datasets we investigate whether this gap is rooted in students’ mis-perception of their own and other’s ability, thereby increasing the expected costs to studying. Among high school...

In the psychology literature, “choking under pressure” refers to a behavioural response to an increase in the stakes. In a natural experiment, we study the gender difference in performance resulting from changes in stakes. We use detailed information on the performance of high-school...

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...

This paper uses data on a sample of Australian teenagers to test for neighbourhood effects on school dropout rates. The data allows us to test for neighbourhood effects at two different spatial scales. We find that educational composition of the larger neighbourhood can influence the dropout...

There is theoretical evidence that economic and family policies have an important impact on mother''s employment. The aim of this article is to study empirically the women''s transitions from employment to non-employment after they have their first birth in Belgium, West-Germany, Italy, Spain...