While randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are the “gold standard” for impact evaluation, they face numerous practical barriers to implementation. In some circumstances, a randomized-encouragement design (RED) is a viable alternative, but applications are surprisingly rare. We discuss the...

The Bologna Process aimed at harmonizing European higher education systems and at increasing their efficiency. This paper analyzes impacts of the Bologna Reform for Germany by using unique micro data from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU). We estimate treatment effects on the probability to...

In this paper, we investigate sibling correlations in educational outcomes, which serve as a broad measure of the importance of family and community background. Making use of rich longitudinal survey and register data for Denmark, our main aim is to identify the parental background...

Individuals with more years of education generally acquire more training later on in life. Such a relationship may be due to skills learned in early periods increasing returns to educational investments in later periods. This paper addresses the question whether the complementarity between...

In a context of demographic change, European governments seek ways to keep the skill set of the labor force flexible. One option to achieve this goal is widening access to college education to non-traditional students, such as those vocationally trained. Assessing whether this is a promising...

In this article, we analyze whether non-native speakers in the classroom affect the educational achievement and social integration of migrant and native students. In contrast to previous studies, which mainly examine the effect of the share of immigrant pupils, we focus on language heterogeneity...

Economic theory that underlies many empirical microeconomic applications predicts that treatment responses depend on individuals’ characteristics and location on the outcome distribution. Using data from a large-scale Pakistani school report card experiment, we consider tests for treatment...

Taking advantage of temporal and geographical variations in the timing of school holidays in Germany, this paper finds that school holidays cause an 19 percent (0.03 percentage points) decrease in the probability of youth suicide. This effect is constant across different types of holidays (fall,...

We estimate the effects of college education on female fertility - a so far understudied margin of education, which we instrument by arguably exogenous variation induced through college expansions. While college education reduces the probability of becoming a mother, college-educated mothers...

In this paper, I evaluate potential side effects of the educational expansion in Germany on the learning outcomes of today's students. The educational expansion was a demand shock in the labor market of teachers, which could have thus encouraged individuals with different teaching abilities to...