Prior to the introduction of mother tongue based education in 1994, the language of instruction for most subjects in Ethiopia's primary schools was the official language (Amharic) - the mother tongue of only one third of the population. This paper uses the variation in individual's exposure to...

Does investment in social infrastructure affect the productivity of manufacturing firms in developing countries? To test this question, I empirically investigate the impact of social infrastructure indicators at district level on firm productivity using firm level data from Pakistan. I split my...

This paper analyzes how high-ability students respond to different indicators of university quality when applying for a university. Are some quality dimensions of a ranking, e.g. research reputation or mentoring more important than others? I estimate a random utility model using administrative...

Immer mehr junge Menschen in Deutschland erwerben eine Studienberechtigung. Aber bei weitem nicht alle Jugendlichen mit einer Studienberechtigung gehen tatsächlich studieren. Der Übergang an eine Hochschule hängt noch immer stark vom Familienhintergrund ab. Unter anderen trauen sich...

This study analyses the persistence and true state dependence of overqualification, i.e. a mismatch between workers' qualifications and their jobs' educational requirements. Employing individual-level panel data for Germany, I find that overqualification is highly persistent among tertiary...

This paper provides estimates of the short-term individual returns to Higher Education (HE) in the United Kingdom, focusing on the effects of attending HE on the labour market outcomes for dropouts. Results show differential labour market outcomes for dropouts vs. individuals who have never...

This paper investigates relative earnings of individuals leaving tertiary education without a degree across 18 European countries employing survey data on adult workers. We find that, on average, university dropouts earn 8% more than those never enrolling into tertiary education, but 25% less...

We investigate the impact of industry engagement on the direction of academic science. We apply the framework of the research agenda to assess to which extent industry engagement shifts the costs and benefits of pursuing and adopting research topics. Our empirical analysis, based on a survey of...

This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany. Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability,...

This paper studies the evolution of three higher education wage differentials from 1996 to 2019 in Germany, a period when significant changes in the educational composition of the workforce took place. Based on regression analysis and samples of male and female workers from the Socio-Economic...