This paper studies the effect of teacher expectations on essay grades in an experimental setting. To this purpose, we randomly assign Turkish or German first names to a set of essays so that some teachers believe a given essay was written by a German native pupil, whereas others believe it was...

In this paper, we estimate the effect of pupil's relative age within the first grade of primary school on math and reading test scores at age 15. The main objective is to evaluate the long-term causal effect of relative age in the first grades of primary school on pupil's test in 16 different...

In this paper, we use repeated cross-section data on pupils in Brazil to estimate the effect of the availability and use of computers and internet as pedagogical tools on math and reading test scores. Computers are increasingly commonly used in schools and their effectiveness in improving...

Increasing participation rates in pupil surveys has become an important challenge for empirical educational research. In this paper we investigate whether combining a monetary incentive with a personalised invitation to participate in a survey increases the response rate of secondary school...

This paper provides evidence on the sources of the persisting mathematics test score gap between boys and girls. In particular, we investigate the role of the share of female mathematics teachers in secondary school and of pupils self-confidence and extrinsic motivation in mathematics. We find...

We estimate the effects of student employment on academic performance. Performance is measured by grades achieved one and a half years after entering university. We use the amount of financial aid students receive after application as a source of exogenous variation in the probability or being...

This paper estimates the short-term effects of the introduction of the Bachelor degree in the framework of the Bologna Process on college enrollment and drop-out rates. We use variation in the timing of the Bachelor implementation at the department level to identify the effect of the reform...

It is a well-known fact that the level of parents' education is strongly correlated with the educational achievement of their children. In this paper,we shed light on the potential channels through which human capital is transmitted from mothers to their children in early childhood. The main...

We investigate the effect of peer group composition on language improvement in language classes for adults. Using unique survey data of migrants participating in an intensive language course in Germany, we find that the age and skill composition of groups affect skill acquisition as assessed by...

Der vorliegende Beitrag liefert eine Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse der Evaluation der Einführung des Mindestlohnes in der Abfallwirtschaft zum 01.01.2010. Die Evaluation setzt sich aus einem Branchenbild sowie einer kausalen Wirkungsanalyse des Mindestlohnes auf Basis einer...