This paper studies the effect of mothers' education on fertility in a population with very low female labor force participation. The results we present are particularly relevant to many countries in the Muslim world where 70-80 percent of women are still out of the labor force. For...

Recent research shows that health at birth is affected by many factors, including maternal education, behaviors, and participation in social programs. In turn, endowments at birth are predictive of adult outcomes, and of the outcomes of future generations. Exposure to environmental pollution is...

This paper uses a natural experiment in Israel to assess the impact of school teaching resources and how it is used, ‘time-on-task', on academic achievements and non-cognitive outcomes. It exploits variation induced by a change in the funding formula that reduced instructional resources...

This paper investigates the question whether long-term human capital outcomes are affected by the duration of maternity leave, i.e. by the time mothers spend at home with their newborn before returning to work. Employing RD and difference-in-difference approaches, this paper exploits an...

We use the discontinuous function of enrollment known as Maimonides Rule as an instrument for class size in large Israeli samples from 2002-2011. As in the 1991 data analyzed by Angrist and Lavy (1999), Maimonides Rule still has a strong first stage. In contrast with the earlier Israeli...

We examine intergenerational mobility (IM) in educational attainment in Africa since independence using census data. First, we map IM across 27 countries and more than 2,800 regions, documenting wide cross-country and especially within-country heterogeneity. Inertia looms large as differences in...

This paper examines the dynamic effects of a teachers' pay for performance experiment on long-term outcomes at adulthood. The program led to a gradual increase in university education of the high school treated students, reaching a gain of 0.25 years of schooling at age 28-30. The effects on...

We study the short and long-term spillover effects of a pay reform that substantially increased the returns to schooling in Israeli kibbutzim. This pay reform, which induced kibbutz students to improve their academic achievements during high school, spilled over to non-kibbutz members who...

The effect of class size on student achievement has long been of concern to educators, parents, and scholars. In Israeli public schools today, class size is partly determined using a rule proposed by Maimonides in the 12th century. This rule induces a nonlinear and non-monotonic relationship...

The relationship between teachers' characteristics and their pupils' achievement has been the subject of many studies. Most of this research focuses on the impact of teacher salaries, experience, and measures of teachers' pre-service training such as educational background. The effect of...