This study investigates whether the choice for a vocationally versus a generally oriented higher education program entails a trade-off between higher employment chances and better matches at the start of the career (when opting for a vocational orientation) and a lower risk of bad match...

We investigate the impact of student work experience on later hiring chances. To completely rule out potential endogeneity, we present a field experiment in which various forms of student work experience are randomly disclosed by more than 1000 fictitious graduates applying for jobs in Belgium....

We test the basic assumption underlying the job competition and crowding out hypothesis: that employers always prefer higher educated to lower educated individuals. To this end, we conduct a randomised field experiment in which duos of fictitious applications by bachelor and master graduates are...

The literature on workplace learning in secondary education has mainly focussed on vocational education programmes. In this study, we examine the impact of internship experience in secondary education on a student's schooling and early labour market outcomes, by analysing unique, longitudinal...

To study the causal impact of smartphone use on academic performance, we collected – for the first time worldwide – longitudinal data on students' smartphone use and educational performance. For three consecutive years we surveyed all students attending classes in eleven different study...

Multitasking – alternating between two different tasks at the same time – has become a daily habit for many university students. However, this may come at a cost since the existing literature emphasises the negative association between multitasking and academic performance. Nonetheless, this...

University students' smartphone use has recently been shown to negatively affect their academic performance. Surprisingly, research testing the empirical validity of potential mechanisms underlying this relationship is very limited. In particular, indirect effects of negative health consequences...

This study aims at estimating the stigma effect of unemployment and overeducation within one framework. To this end, we conduct a field experiment in the Belgian labour market. We send out trios of fictitious male job applications to real vacancies. These applications differ only by the labour...

This study examines the direct and indirect impact (via educational achievement) of student work during secondary education on later employment outcomes. To this end, we jointly model student work and later schooling and employment outcomes as a chain of discrete choices. To tackle their...

This study aims at estimating the stigma effect of unemployment and overeducation within one framework. To this end, we conduct a field experiment in the Belgian labour market. We send out trios of fictitious male job applications to real vacancies. These applications differ only by the labour...