This paper uses spatial variations in the enrolment rate of Tunisian pupils in 1931 to estimate the weight of colonial history on medium- and long-run educational attainment. We assemble a new dataset on the location of public primary schools and the number of pupils and teachers, together with...

Previous research has shown that school enrollment in developing countries responds to the changes in demand for low-skilled and high-skilled labor in the market. Using data from Mexico, I show that the negative effects of increases in relative demand for low-skilled labor are not limited to...

This paper focuses on the implications of private tutoring in Turkey for questions of equity regarding the provision of public education, based on an analysis of previously published research. The nature of the private tutoring and its relation to the two national selection examinations in...

Education has been considered by political economy and political science literature one of the most important factors explaining political participation: voter turnout, civic engagement, political knowledge, and democratic attitudes. However, only few papers have explored the causal link with...

To estimate causal effects of college choice, we exploit eligibility rules for student loans in a regression discontinuity design. Loan programs induce students to pursue college degrees that are more expensive and prolonged relative to technical education. Although higher education is...

This paper uses an own built dataset on the history of universities in Italy during 1861-2010 to estimate neighbourhood effects in the local supply of higher education, and incorporate them in a welfare analysis. We implement an instrumental variables approach that exploits initial conditions in...

We use the UK's 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) to study which attributes characterize a top-scoring (four-star) publication in Economics and Econometrics. We frame the analysis as a classification problem and, using information in official documents, derive conditions to infer the...

In 2012, the Brazilian government passed a law that mandated all federal higher education institutions to implement a 50 percent admission quota for historically disadvantaged students. I study the implications of this regulation on the academic performance of non-targeted students....

A central authority designs and implements the college admissions process in Turkey. All applicants are required to take an SAT-like test and submit their preferences over the departments. Then, the central authority places the applicants in departments by considering the test scores and stated...

This study describes how minority enrollment probabilities respond to changes in admission policies from affirmative-action to merit-only programs and then to percentage plans when the demographic composition of the potential pool of applicants is also shifting. It takes advantage of admission...