Although universal childcare has become an essential tool to support child development, few economic studies analyze its effects on non-cognitive skills and little is known about causal effects on these skills in the long run. In this paper we go beyond short run analyses and examine the long...

Children with lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to benefit more from early child care, but are substantially less likely to be enrolled. We study whether reducing behavioral barriers in the application process increases enrollment in child care for lower-SES children. In our RCT in Germany...

Do increased instruction hours improve the performance of all students? Using PISA scores of students in ninth grade, we analyse the effect of a German education reform that increased weekly instruction hours by two hours (6.5 percent) overalmost five years. In the additional time, students are...

Despite increasing access to university education, students from disadvantaged or non-academic family backgrounds are still underrepresented at universities. In this regard, the economic literature mainly studies the effect of financial constraints on post-secondary educational decisions. Our...

Although the proportion of students enrolled in college increased in the last decades, students from non-college family backgrounds remain underrepresented in higher education around the world. This study sheds light on whether the provision of information in a randomized controlled trial with...

It is often argued that institutionalized after-school care (ASC) can benefit children lacking adequate homework support at home and, hence, foster equality of opportunity. However, despite considerable policy interest, it is unclear whether these afternoon programs are beneficial for child...

Microsimulation methods and models of labor market decisions have attracted a lot of attention as an approach to the assessment of consequences of family related policies in the area of labor market and fertility. We set these models in the context of relevant demographic theories and present...

We analyze empirically the optimal design of social insurance and assistance programs when families obtain insurance by making labor supply choices for both spouses. For this purpose, we specify a structural life-cycle model of the labor supply and savings decisions of singles and married...

We apply a structural model of mothers' labor supply and child care choices to evaluate the effects of two childcare reforms in Germany that were introduced simultaneously in August 2013. First, a legal claim to subsidized child care became effective for all children aged one year or older....

We examine the consequences of compressing secondary schooling on students' university enrollment. An unusual education reform in Germany reduced the length of academic high school while simultaneously increasing the instruction hours in the remaining years. Accordingly, students receive the...