This paper uses German linked employer-employee data in order to estimate the impact of intra-firm wage dispersion on the probability that firms pay for continuous training. About half of all firms in the estimation sample cover all direct and indirect training costs, which contradicts the...

We use the recent introduction of tuition fees at public universities in seven of the sixteen German states to identify the effects of tuition fees on university enrollment of first-year students at German public universities. Our study differs from previous research in two important ways....

We study education and income tax policies in a model with endogenous selection into college. Our framework is strongly influenced by the empirical college literature and incorporates heterogenous returns and tastes for college, earnings risk (implying uncertain returns to college) and...

This study analyses the effect of an increase in college costs on student achievement, particularly time-to-degree and performance. I exploit a unique policy at a Swiss university to identify and estimate the causal effect of an increase in tuition. Students faced an unexpected raise in tuition....

Previous research does not teach us much about the role of music for skill development. Learning a musical instrument during childhood may affect educational opportunities by improving cognitive skills, teaching non-cognitive skills or sending positive signals to school teachers. Our study is...

We estimate the effect of changes in the body mass index on wages and satisfaction in a panel of German employees. Dynamic models indicate that satisfaction with life in general and with health are responsive to weight changes, but wages and satisfaction with work are not. These results mainly...

Political regimes influence the contents of education and the criteria used to select and evaluate students. We study the impact of a socialist education on the likelihood of obtaining a college degree, as well as on several labor market outcomes, by exploiting the reorganization of the school...

We assess the relevance of formal education on the productivity of the self-employed and distinguish between opportunity entrepreneurs, who voluntarily pursue a business opportunity, and necessity entrepreneurs, who lack alternative employment options. We expect differences in the returns to...

We analyze the offshorability of jobs using the German Qualifications and Career Survey. The paper differentiates between outsourcing potential and international tradability and systematically uses a large set of potential determinants of organizational and spatial relocation derived from the...

We analyze the causal effect of education on old-age cognitive abilities using German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data and regional variation in mandatory years of schooling and the supply of schools. Our outcome variable is the score an individual reaches in an ultra-short intelligence test. We...