This paper has two purposes. The first is to develop a methodological framework that can be used to introduce and discuss alternative explanations of the correlation between health and schooling. The second is to test these explanations empirically in order to select the most relevant ones and...

In previous research, a substantial gap in test scores between White and Black students persists, even after controlling for a wide range of observable characteristics. Using a newly available data set (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study), we demonstrate that in stark contrast to earlier...

In this paper, we investigate the effect of federal welfare reform on the employment, hours of work and marriage rates of three groups of low-educated women: foreign-born citizens, foreign-born non-citizens and native-born citizens. Among non-citizens, we investigate whether the behavioral...

This paper formalizes a sociological phenomenon entitled 'acting white'. The key idea is that individuals face a tension between signaling their type to the outside labor market and signaling their type to a peer group: signals that induce high wages can be signals that induce peer rejection. We...

A model combining student preferences for college with university admissions decisions is estimated to provide information on the role of test scores in the determination of post-secondary educational opportunities. In contrast to implications of much of the recent criticism of tests and their...

How does a large unconditional increase in salary affect employee performance in the public sector? We present the first experimental evidence on this question in the context of a unique policy change in Indonesia that led to a permanent doubling of base teacher salaries. Using a large-scale...

A central argument for school choice is that families value the freedom to exercise choice and can make wise decisions. This principle may underlie why lottery-based school evaluations, which exploit over-subscription due to excess demand, have almost always reported positive or zero achievement...

Parents preferring sons tend to go on to have more children until a boy is born, and to concentrate investment in boys for a given number of children (sibsize). Thus, having a brother may affect child education in two ways: an indirect effect by keeping sibsize lower and a direct rivalry effect...

An outstanding challenge in education is improving learning among low-achieving students. We present results from the first randomized experiment of an inquiry-based remedial science-education program for low-performing elementary students in the setting of a developing country. At 48 low-income...

Fertility rates have long been falling in many developed countries while educational attainment in these countries has risen. We attempt to reconcile these two trends with a novel application of a recent model to generate plausibly causal effects of education on these decreases in fertility....