We exploit a universe dataset of state school students in England with linkedtest score records to document the evolution of attainment through school fordifferent ethnic groups. The analysis yields a number of striking findings. First,we show that, controlling for personal characteristics, all...

Truancy is often seen as irrational behaviour on the part of school ageyouth. This paper takes the opposite view and models truancy as thesolution to a time allocation problem in which youths derive currentreturns from activities that reduce time spent at school. The model isestimated using a US...

A substantial literature examines second-best environmental policy, focusingparticularly on how the Pigouvian directive that marginal taxes should equalmarginal external harms needs to be modified in light of the preexistingdistortion due to labor income taxation. Additional literature is...

This paper proposes a simple framework to study incentives and matching in the marketfor teachers. The framework is used to investigate the consequences of introducing incentivepay for teachers when contracts have both a matching and an incentive effect. Our analysissuggests that school...

[...]The New York City Social Indicators Survey (SIS)project represents one effort to track the consequences ofpolicy reform and devolution for inequality and well-beingin the largest and most diverse city in the United States.The project uses a telephone survey to collect data from arepeated...

[...]In this paper, I examine two methods of measuringthe value of better schools. One involves following individualsover time to determine how the quality of theirschooling affects outcomes later in their lives; the otherinvolves calculating parental valuation of better schoolstoday. I review...