We use PSID data to 2008 to consider changes in the intergenerational elasticity (IGE) of income in fifteen successive ten-year cohort-groups of sons aged 36-45 between 1997 and 2011. Regressing sons' estimated lifetime income on fathers' income within each group, we obtain fifteen IGE...

The use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and related randomization strategies to eliminate selection biases in establishing causality is a key element of the “modern experimentalist paradigm” (MEP). Yet, its emphasis on precisely identifying causal factors often limits its capacity to...

Efforts to enforce compulsory schooling by linking welfare assistance to school attendance are rarely successful in themselves. One reason is a lack of credibility: targeted families may anticipate that welfare administrators will be reluctant to withdraw support when attendance does not...

This report assesses the extent to which student and staff opinions towards school — specifically, Victoria's Attitudes to School Survey (ATSS) administered to students and its School Staff Survey (SSS) — can improve predictions of government school performance reflected in students...

We draw on quantitative and descriptive data from Robert Campbell’s widely cited manual for prospective apprentices, The London Tradesman (1747), to demonstrate the responsiveness of apprenticeship in mid-eighteenth century London to market forces of supply and demand. We regress...

This paper compares two functionally different approaches to analyzing standardized test data: least-squares based value-added analysis, geared principally to supporting teacher and school accountability; and Betebenner’s (2009) student growth percentiles, which focuses primarily on tracking...

This paper examines the extent to which year-9 performance on the National Assessment Program — Language Arts and Numeracy (NAPLAN) predicts access to higher education as determined by subsequent achievement on year-12 Victoria Certificate of Education (VCE) exams. VCE performance is measured...

Women’s under-representation in high-paying jobs in engineering and information technology contributes substantially to the gender wage gap, reflecting similar patterns in higher education. We trace these patterns back to students’ choice of advanced science, technology, engineering, and...