We use unique Swedish data to estimate intergenerational associations between adoptees and their biological and adoptive parents. We argue that the impact from biological parents captures broad pre-birth factors, including genes and prenatal environment, and the impact from adoptive parents...

This paper aims to understand how corruption responds to financial incentives and, in particular, it is an attempt to identify the causal impact of a wage loss on the prevalence of corruption in the education sector. Specifically, we exploit the unexpected wage cut in May 2010 that affected all...

I estimate the effect of class size on scholastic achievement using that schools are only in session during the school year and out of session during the summer. This seasonal feature of the schooling system makes it possible to control for unobservable pupil characteristics affecting both the...

Using that schools are in session during the school year and out of session during the summer, it is possible to isolate the effect of schooling on learning. This natural experiment situation can also be used to see whether schooling compensates for disadvantageous social backgrounds. Using a...

This paper uses data from the 1996 Australian Survey of Aspects of Literacy to examine the effects on labour market outcomes of literacy, numeracy and educational attainment. The survey includes a range of literacy and numeracy variables that are highly inter-correlated. A "general to specific"...

Using an immigrant assimilation framework, this paper develops a model of the occupational mobility of immigrants and tests the hypotheses using data on adult males from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia. The theoretical model generates hypotheses regarding a U-shaped pattern of...

This paper is concerned with the relationship among family members in the determinants of destination language proficiency among immigrants. A model of immigrant language proficiency is augmented to include dynamics among family members. It is tested using data on a sample of recent immigrants....

This study develops a theoretical framework for the study of the tendency for immigrant groups to be geographically concentrated. Testing the model for Australia shows that the extent of geographic concentration of immigrant groups is negatively related to age at migration, duration of residence...

This paper is concerned with the determinants of English language proficiency among immigrants in a longitudinal survey for Australia. It focuses on both visa category and variables derived from an economic model of the determinants of destination language proficiency among immigrants. Skills...