In this paper we follow the students that took the PISA 2012 test in Switzerland and analyze their transition into and progress in uppersecondary education. We observe a substantive difference in the rate of progress between natives and students with a migration background. One year after...

We analyze inequality and mobility across generations in a dynastic economy. Nurture, in terms of bequests and the schooling investment into the next generation, is observable but the draw of nature in terms of ability is hidden, stochastic and persistent across generations. We calibrate the...

To understand the socio-economic enrollment gap in university attendance, we elicit students’ beliefs about the benefits of university education in a sample of 2,540 secondary school students. Our choice model estimates reveal that perceived non-pecuniary benefits explain a large share of the...

It has been argued that monetary incentives restrain individual creativity and hamper performance in jobs requiring out of the box thinking. This paper reports from an experiment designed to test if the negative incentive effect is present also when individuals work together to solve such...

Our focus will be on the role of migration to the United States from a set of important European sending countries as a device for improving the human capital of the children and grandchildren of migrants as measured by their education. In this paper, we derive a new and conceptual more...

We examine the phenomenon of forsaken schooling resulting from opportunities abroad. The brain-drain/gain literature takes as its starting point the migration of educated/professional labor from poor origin countries to richer host countries. While high-skilled migration is worrisome, many...

We examine how the forsaken schooling phenomenon in migration evolved over time in Tajikistan. After completing compulsory schooling at ages 16-17, young men in Tajikistan are forsaking professional education because of opportunities to migrate for higher paid low-skilled jobs in the Russian...