This paper formulates and estimates multistage production functions for children's cognitive and noncognitive skills. Skills are determined by parental environments and investments at different stages of childhood. We estimate the elasticity of substitution between investments in one period and...

This paper provides a rationale for the revival of protectionism, based on the rise of the educated class. In a trade model with heterogeneous workers and entrepreneurs, globalization generates aggregate gains but has distributional effects, which can be attenuated through taxation. By playing a...

We examine whether parental and school investments reinforce or compensate for student performance. Our analysis exploits school-starting-age rules in 34 countries, capturing achievement variation that arises because younger children typically underperform their older peers. Parents respond to...

Disruptions in family life can take many forms, but all have the potential to impact student learning. With school administrative data matched to birth records, I estimate the effect of unexpected changes in the home environment, or family shocks, on achievement. Identification comes from...

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....

Human capital investments at an early age appear crucial for individual outcomes. Family size might affect these investments influencing parental time and economic resources invested in children's education. This aspect is related to the children quantity-quality trade-off proposed by Becker...

Schooling is related to health and future labor market outcomes. The school parents choose for their children often depends on feedback received from other parents. Therefore it is important to understand whether parental satisfaction with the school depends only on objective measures of the...

We use quasi-experimental variation in the timing of national standardized test-score reports to estimate the causal impact of giving parents objective information about children's academic achievement. Releasing test scores leads to more modest perceptions of academic achievement and reduced...

Studying with higher ability peers increases student performance, yet we have little idea why. We exploit random assignment of students to classrooms and find positive peer effects on test scores. With rich data on nineteen potential mechanisms, we then estimate how effects on attitudes,...