Studies based on instrumental variable techniques suggest that the value of a high school education is large for potential dropouts, yet we know much less about the size of the benefiÂ…t for students who will go on to post-secondary education. To help Â…fill this gap, I measure the...

As school leaders, principals can influence student achievement in a number of ways, such as: hiring and firing teachers, monitoring instruction, and maintaining student discipline, among others. We measure the effect of individual principals on gains in student math and reading achievement...

The province of Ontario has two publicly funded school systems: secular schools (known as public schools) that are open to all students, and separate schools that are limited to children with Catholic backgrounds. A simple model of inter-system competition predicts that incentives for effort are...

In this paper, we estimate the determinants of low (and slow) completion rates with a competing risk duration model using data from the National Apprenticeship Survey (NAS) 2007. This allows us to distinguish the impact age and duration dependence on the probability of dropping out. We find...

In Canada, advocates of universal child care often point to policies implemented in Quebec as providing a model for early education and care policies in other provinces. While these policies have proven to be incredibly popular among citizens, initial evaluations of access to these programs...

En Amérique du Nord, les étudiants dont les parents ont émigré obtiennent en général un meilleur niveau d’études que ceux dont les parents sont nés au Canada. En Europe, on constate l’inverse. Au Canada, les étudiants de parents immigrants (de 1re ou de 2e génération) suivent des...

Toute personne entrant sur le marché du travail avec un niveau scolaire relativement faible découvre souvent qu’il lui manque le capital humain et les diplômes nécessaires pour s’adapter au marché du travail qui change rapidement au Canada. La grave récession des débuts des années...

Existing studies on the returns to college selectivity have mixed results, mainly due to the difficulty of controlling for selection into more-selective colleges based on unobserved ability. Moreover, researchers have not considered graduate degree attainment in the analysis of labour market...

Teacher strikes can have many of effects, including creating major inconveniences for parents, but the most contentious issue is undoubtedly the impact on student learning. The argument against teachers’ right to strike is based on the assumption that teacher strikes negatively affect...

We investigate the effects of public school open enrolment, which allows students to enroll in any public school with available space, on fourth grade test scores. We find a small, positive effect on the average student; this benefit appears to stem from increased competition among schools,...