This paper investigates the impact of attending early childcare on the quality of parent–child interactions and children's cognitive outcomes. My identification strategy exploits geographical differences in terms of exposure to the program, controlling for the period when the program is...

We comment on the work of Hanushek et al. (2015) and show that returns to skills are very heterogeneous and depend crucially on the tasks performed in the workplace, in line with the critique by Acemoglu and Autor (2011). Depending on the type of tasks performed at work, as well as on...

Children of Asian immigrants in most English-speaking destinations have better academic outcomes, yet the underlying causes of their advantages are under-studied. We employ panel time-use diaries by two cohorts of children observed over a decade to present new evidence that children of Asian...

Do investments in soft skills pay off in terms of student achievement? This paper evaluates a large private-sector program in this area, EPIS, based on individual and small-group sessions of mediators that seek to improve the non-cognitive skills (e.g. motivation, self-esteem, conscientiousness)...

Despite extensive literature on peer effects, the role of peers on personality skill development remains poorly understood. We fill this gap by investigating the effects of having disadvantaged primary school peers, generated by random classroom assignment and parental migration for employment....

This study aims to identify the main determinants of student performance in reading and maths across eight European Union countries (Austria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, and Slovenia). Based on student-level data from the OECD’s PISA 2018 survey and by means of the...

This study examines the impact that over-education has on the earnings of private and public sector workers in Trinidad and Tobago. Using individual person's data from the Continuous Sample Survey of the Population (CSSP) for the period 1991-2015, the returns of over-educated workers is...

This paper surveys the theoretical approaches used in the literature to study the phenomenon of delayed graduation and university dropout. The classical human capital model does not contemplate failure, which the amended human capital model does. Delayed graduation and university dropout are two...

Using Italian data on standardized test scores, we show that the performance decline associated with question position is heterogeneous across students. This fact implies that the rank of individuals and classes depends on the length of the test. Longer tests may also exhibit larger gaps between...

Widespread reliance on private tutoring has raised concerns over the hidden costs of Egypt's "free" education system. This paper examines the drivers of tutoring at different levels of education, using nationally representative survey data as well as qualitative data on youth experiences in...