This paper examines the relationship between teacher unionization, student achievement and teachers’ pay using a cross-section of data from private schools in India. We use differences in student mark across subjects to identify within-pupil variation in achievement and find that union...

Recent studies conclude that teachers are important for student learning but it remains uncertain what actually determines effective teaching. This study directly peers into the black box of educational production by investigating the relationship between lecture style teaching and student...

Nationwide school choice and fixed per-student governmental funding provide incentives for Dutch schools to perform well. Roughly one third of Dutch pre-university schools are of catholic denomination. Acknowledging this widely available outside option to public and other schools, this paper...

Several studies have shown that body height is positively associated with educational attainment. In this paper, we investigate the mechanisms behind this relationship using data on German pre-teen students. We show that (i) taller children are more likely to enroll in 'Gymnasium', the most...

Student performance in Sub-Saharan Africa is tragically low. We study the importance of teacher subject knowledge for student performance in this region using unique international assessment data for sixth-grade students and their teachers. To circumvent potential bias due to unobserved student...

Early retirement incentives (ERIs) are increasingly prevalent in education as districts seek to close budget gaps by replacing expensive experienced teachers with lower-cost newer teachers. Combined with the aging of the teacher workforce, these ERIs are likely to change the composition of...

A growing number of American states require that students who do not demonstrate basic reading proficiency at the end of third grade be retained and provided with remedial services. We exploit a discontinuity in the probability of third grade retention under Floridaś test-based promotion policy...

We use admissions lotteries to estimate the effects of attendance at Bostonś charter high schools on college preparation, college attendance, and college choice. Charter attendance increases pass rates on the high-stakes exam required for high school graduation in Massachusetts, with especially...

Students in some countries do far better on international achievement tests than students in other countries. Is this all due to differences in what students bring with them to school - socio-economic background, cultural factors, and the like? Or do school systems make a difference? This essay...

We study the effect of the world's largest school feeding program on children's learning outcomes. Staggered implementation across different states of a 2001 Indian Supreme Court Directive mandating the introduction of free school lunches in public primary schools generates plausibly exogenous...