This paper explores students' expectations about the returns to completing higher education and provides first evidence on perceived signaling and human capital effects. We elicit counterfactual labor market expectations for the hypothetical scenarios of leaving university with or without a...

This paper provides novel evidence on the labor-market returns to for-profit postsecondary school and community college attendance using a two-step model to avoid recent concerns with singlestage fixed effects methods. Specifically, we link administrative records on for-profit school and...

We investigate the short- and long-term effects of economic conditions at high-school graduation as a source of exogenous variation in the labor-market opportunities of potential college entrants. Exploiting business cycle fluctuations across birth cohorts for 28 developed countries, we find...

We present a theory explaining the impact of ability tracking on academic performance based on grading policies. Our model distinguishes between initial ability, which is mainly determined by parental background, and eagerness to extend knowledge. We show that achievements of low ability...

A dynamic discrete choice model is set up to estimate the effects of grade retention in high school, both in the short- (end-of-year evaluation) and long-run (drop-out and delay). In contrast to regression discontinuity designs, this approach captures treatment heterogeneity and controls for...

This paper investigates the determinants of academic achievements of post-reform undergraduate students of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Academic achievements are measured with the students’ grade point averages and time to graduation. The set of independent variables contains...