We propose a methodology for evaluating educational performance, from a multilevel perspective. We use partial frontier approaches to mitigate the influence of outliers and the curse of dimensionality. Our estimation considers idiosyncratic variables at the school, class, and student levels. Our...

Nineteen percent of 1997–98 North Carolina 3rd graders were observed to drop out of high school. A series of logits predict probabilities of dropping out on determinants such as math and reading test scores, absenteeism, suspension, and retention, at the following grade levels: 3rd, 5th, 8th,...

This paper presents evidence from a randomized field experiment testing the impact of a 3-year matched savings program on educational outcomes 10 years after the start of the experiment. We examine the effect of an Individual Development Account (IDA) program on (1) educational enrollment, (2)...

Modern societies would potentially reap large benefits from upgrading low skilled's education. However, this is difficult to put into practice because employers are reluctant to train low skilled and because low skilled are unwilling to participate. To circumvent this potential market...

The post-communist Czech Republic provides a laboratory in which to investigate possible responses to the adoption of universal education vouchers. Private schools appear to have arisen in response to distinct market incentives. They are more common in fields where public school inertia has...

Despite increasing access to university education, students from disadvantaged or non-academic family backgrounds are still underrepresented in universities. In this regard, the economics literature has focused on the role of financial constraints as a cause of these observed differences in...

Despite numerous studies on skill development, we know little about the effects of extracurricular music activities on cognitive and non-cognitive skills. This study examines how music training during childhood and youth affects the development of cognitive skills, school grades, personality,...

We exploit presumably exogenous variation in the availability of college-educated workers at the province level produced by a reform that increased the supply of higher education to estimate human capital production externalities for Italian manufacturing firms. We show that when the potential...

I examine the effects of a longer school year in Indonesia on grade repetition, educational attainment, employability, and earnings. I exploit an arbitrary rule that assigned students to a longer school year in Indonesia in 1978–1979, which fits a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. I find...

Applying a financial assets approach, we analyze the returns and earnings risk of investments into different types of human capital. Even though the returns from investing in human capital are extensively studied, little is known about the properties of the returns to different types of human...