It is now well established that highly developed countries tend to score well on measures of social capital and have higher levels of generalized trust. In turn, the willingness to trust has been shown to be correlated with various social and environmental factors (e.g. institutions, culture) on...

We estimate the influence of classmates' ability characteristics on student achievement in exogenously formed student groups. The study uses administrative data on undergraduate students at a large selective university in Russia. The presence of high-ability classmates has a positive effect on...

There is now a large literature on the correlates of prenatal androgen exposure and various individual measures of performance in sports, business, or schooling. However, there is still relatively limited evidence of the impact of prenatal androgens on life achievement. Using data from the...

This paper focuses on the changing economic value of secondary and higher education in four potential world economic powerhouses - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - known as the BRIC countries. We show that in the past twenty-five years in the BRIC countries, changes in rates of return to...

Peer group effects show the influence of student social environments on their individual achievements. Traditionally, a social environment is considered by researchers of peer effects as exogenously given. However, significant peers that affect performance are often those that are deliberately...

The introduction of the Unified State Exam (USE) has simplified the process of university entry by decreasing transaction costs associated with the application process. The new system allows applicants to apply to several higher education institutions at the same time. However, many students do...

This paper studies the publication productivity of inbreds and non-inbreds among Russian academics. The literature provides ambiguous results on the relationship between inbred status and productivity. This may be explained by the focus on different segments of academia as well as by using...

We estimate the effect of the Russian University excellence program (Project 5-100) initiated by the Government in 2013 on research performance of top Russian universities which received, on a competitive basis, substantial financial support within this program. To do so we use an econometric...

Social interactions with peers during learning have a significant impact on university students' academic achievement. As social ties are voluntary, an empirical estimation of peer effects is exposed to a potential endogeneity problem. To overcome this issue, we propose to define the peer group...

This paper examines the impact of family income on the results of the Unified State Examination (the USE) and university choice in Russia. We argue that, even under the USE, which was introduced instead of high school exit exams and university-specific entrance exams, entrants from wealthy...