This paper evaluates average educational performance effects of an expanding independent- school sector at the compulsory level by assessing a radical voucher reform that was implemented in Sweden in 1992. Starting from a situation where all public schools were essentially local monopolists, the...

In the Austrian (as well as the German) education system students have to choose between different school tracks at the age of 10. We argue that early tracking creates inefficiencies because the earlier the track choice has to be made, the more it is influenced by factors other than innate...

The Finnish comprehensive school reform replaced the old two-track school system with a uniform nine-year comprehensive school and significantly reduced the degree of heterogeneity in the Finnish primary and secondary education. We estimate the effect of this reform on the test scores in the...

In present day Germany, one in seven children is raised in a single parent household. We investigate the effect of single parenthood on children's educational attainment, measured by the school track at the age 14, using ordered probit models. We study whether the effect of living in single...

We examine the effect of single motherhood on children's secondary school track choice using 12-year-old children drawn from the German Socio-Economic Panel. In line with previous studies for the U.S., the U.K. and Sweden, we find a negative correlation between single motherhood and children's...

The effects of market and policy reforms on poverty and inequality in Latin America have been of considerable concern. The region continues to have relatively great income inequalities. Two different societies with the same income distribution may have different levels of social welfare because...

Immigrants typically perform worse than other students in the OECD countries. We examine to what extent this is due to the population characteristics of the neighborhoods that immigrants grow up in. We address this issue using a governmental refugee placement policy which provides exogenous...

This study investigates the importance of gender and ethnic interactions among teachers and students for school performance in Swedish, English and Mathematics. School leaving certificates assigned by the teacher is compared with results on comprehensive national tests. The analysis is based on...

This study compares results on national tests with teachers’ assessment of student performance, by using Swedish data of grade 9 students (16 years old). I examine whether there are systematic differences correlated with gender and ethnic background. That is, if the relationship between school...

Gender segregation in the labor market may be explained by women's re-luctance to choose technical occupations, although the foundations for career choices are certainly laid earlier, during education. Educational experts claim that female students are doing better in math and science and are...