Pressure on public finances has increased scrutiny of public support for innovation. We examine two particular issues. First, there have been many recent calls for the (relatively new) UK R&D subsidy to be extended to other research activities, such as software. Second, argument still rages...

This paper estimates the effects of a 2008 policy that eliminated tuition fees at public universities in Ecuador. We use a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits variation across cohorts differentially exposed to the policy, as well as geographic variation in access to public...

We examine the causal impact of China's higher education expansion on labor market outcomes for young college graduates using China's 2005 1% Population Sample Survey. Exploiting variation in the expansion of university spots across provinces and high school cohorts and applying a...

This paper surveys the theoretical approaches used in the literature to study the phenomenon of delayed graduation and university dropout. The classical human capital model does not contemplate failure, which the amended human capital model does. Delayed graduation and university dropout are two...

We investigate the labour market determinants and outcomes of adult participation in formal education (lifelong learning) in Australia, a country with high levels of adult education. Employing longitudinal data and fixed effects methods allows identification of effects on outcomes free of...

Since the 1980s the United States has faced growing disinterest and high attrition from STEM majors. Over the same period, foreign-born enrollment in U.S. higher education has increased steadily. This paper examines whether foreign-born peers affect the likelihood American college students...

In many countries there is a considerable gender gap in enrolment for a bachelor's degree in Economics, arguably an important stepping stone towards positions of influence in policy making and occupations paying relatively high wages. We investigate the sources of this gap by looking in detail...

I take advantage of a sharp discontinuity in the probability of admission to an elite university at the admission score threshold, to estimate causal returns to college education quality. I use a newly constructed dataset, which combines individual administrative records about high school,...

How can colleges find successful applicants? Criteria such as GPA, interviews, essays, and tests provide information about candidates, but which work and why? We shed light on these questions using unique data on the universe of objective and subjective rankings of all college applicants in...