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

We study a mentoring program that aims to improve the labor-market prospects of school-attending adolescents from disadvantaged families by offering them a university-student mentor. Our RCT investigates program effectiveness on three outcome dimensions that are highly predictive of adolescents'...

This paper investigates the role self-confidence plays in college applications. Using incentivized experiments, we measure the self-confidence of more than 2,000 students applying to colleges in France. This data reveals that the best female and low-SES students significantly underestimate their...

The gap in university enrollment by parental education is large and persistent in many countries. In our representative survey, 74 percent of German university graduates, but only 36 percent of those without a university degree favor a university education for their children. The latter are more...

This paper analyzes the reasons for the large and persistent gaps in transitions after secondary school between native pupils compared to second- and third generation immigrant pupils in Germany. I first document that differences in parental background, skills (such as school degrees or test...

This study investigates inequality of opportunity in educational achievements in Turkey over time. For this purpose we use test scores of PISA in mathematics, science and reading achievement of 15-year-olds over the period 2003-2012. Since the different waves of the PISA test cover only a...

This paper focuses on the implications of private tutoring in Turkey for questions of equity regarding the provision of public education, based on an analysis of previously published research. The nature of the private tutoring and its relation to the two national selection examinations in...

In this study, using the 2003 Turkish Household Budget Survey (HBS), we investigate the life-cycle profiles of household income and its components by educational attainment, and compare these profiles with those reported for various developed and developing countries. A key aspect of our...