Inequality of opportunity strikes when two children with the same academic performance are sent to different quality schools because their parents differ in socio-economic status. Based on a novel dataset for Germany, we demonstrate that children are significantly less likely to enter the...

Evidence suggests that participants in direct student-proposing deferred-acceptance mechanisms (DA) play dominated strategies. To explain the data, we introduce expectation-based loss aversion into a school-choice setting and characterize choice-acclimating personal equilibria in DA. We find...

We exploit a recent state-level reform in Germany that granted parents the right to decide on the highest secondary school track suitable for their child, changing the purpose of the primary teacher's recommendation from mandatory to informational. Applying a disaggregated synthetic control...

This paper analyzes sin goods consumption when individuals exhibit present-focused preferences. It considers three types of present focus: present-bias with varying degrees of naiveté, Gul-Pesendorfer preferences, and a dual-self approach. We investigate the incentives to deviate from healthy...

This paper evaluates average educational performance effects of an expanding independent school sector at the compulsory level by assessing a radical voucher reform that was implemented in Sweden in 1992. Starting from a situation where all public schools were essentially local monopolists, the...

This study uses survey data to investigate attitudes among Swiss voters to different models offering more freedom of choice in the educational system. The findings indicate clear opposition to the use of taxpayer money to fund private schools, while free choice between public schools seems to...

We consider long-term impacts of establishing school psychology offices in Norway, which introduced ‘maturity testing’ to advice parents and school boards on school starting age. In the early reform period, children born close to the normative age cut-off who reached school-starting age...

This paper studies a school district that was federally mandated to adopt a race-blind lottery system to fill seats in its oversubscribed magnet schools. The district had previously integrated its schools by conducting separate admissions lotteries by race to offset its predominantly black...

We examine the effects of a comprehensive school reform on mental health. The reform postponed the tracking of students into vocational and academic schools from age 11 to age 16. The reform was implemented gradually across Finnish municipalities between 1972 and 1977. We use...

Using a rich dataset that merges student-level school records with birth records, and leveraging a student fixed effects design, we explore how the massive scale-up of a Florida private school choice program affected public school students’ outcomes. Program expansion modestly benefited...