Estimates of the effect of education on GDP (the social return) have been hard to reconcile with micro evidence on the private return to schooling. We present a simple explanation combining two ideas: imperfect substitution and endogenous skill-biased technological progress and use cross-country...

Large scale tracking policies, allowing academically apt pupils to enter a select group of secondary schools, can be found in many Sub-Saharan countries. However, evidence on the impact of these policies on school outcomes, especially school participation, is limited. This paper fills this gap...

In the Netherlands, students who want to become a medical specialist have toenrol in a training program which is in limited supply. During the search for aposition as trainee (or "junior medical specialist"), they may accept atemporary job as a medical assistant. We use a micro data set to...

Studies on the determinants of the demand for higher education typically emphasizethe relevance of socio-economic factors, but leave the spatial dimensions of the prospectivestudents’ university choices largely unexplored. In this study, we investigate the determinantsof university entrance...

This paper identifies pivotal factors behind individual decision-making in the transition from high school to post-secondary education in the Netherlands. We apply a multinomial logit framework to individual data on post-secondary education choices. Specifically, our modeling approach...

Impact evaluations of development programmes usually focus on a comparison of participants with a control group. However, if the programme generates externalities for non-participants such an approach will capture only part of the programme’s impact. Based on a unique large-scale quantitative...

We analyze the impact of adolescents' friendship relations in their final-year class of highschool on subsequent labor market success. Based on a typology of network positions we locateeach student within the social system of the school class as either: an isolate, a sycophant,a broker or a...

We develop a simple human capital model for optimum schooling length when earnings are stochastic, and highlight the pivotal role of risk attitudes and the schooling gradient of earnings risk. We use Spanish data to document the gradient and to estimate individual response to earnings risk in...