Previous work on the relation between school inputs and students' educational attainment typically fails to account for the fact that schools can adjust their grading structure, even though such actions are likely to affect students' incentives. Our theoretical model shows that, depending on...

This paper documents a startling difference in the grading standards between education departments and other academic departments at universities – undergraduate students in education classes receive significantly higher grades than students in all other classes. This phenomenon cannot be...

This article argues that resource expansion can fail to improve actual student performance because it might cause educators to soften grading standards (i.e., induce grade inflation). Our theoretical model shows that, depending on schools’ and students’ reactions to resource changes, the...

Assuming that teachers are concerned with human capital formation and students - with ability signaling, in this paper we model a teacher-student relationship as an agency problem with conflicting interests. In our model, the teacher elicits effort from the student rewarding for it with a grade,...

This volume was prepared by Susanne Link during her stay at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich and the Department of Human Capital and Innovation of the Ifo Institute of Economic Research. It was accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Economics Departure of the University of Munich in...

This paper analyzes how integrated labor markets affect the financing of higher education. For this, we employ a general-equilibrium model with overlapping generations and individuals who differ in their abilities. At the first stage, governments can choose the quality of education and the...

This paper examines the causal impact of education on within-country migration. A major higher education reform took place in Finland in the 1990s. It gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics and expanded higher education to all regions. The reform created exogenous...

This paper examines the effect of working during higher education on academic progression, in terms of number of credits acquired by first-year university students in Italy. We discuss different contrasting hypotheses on the role of employment during university on academic outcomes: the zero-sum...

The research on diversity and diversity management in German organisations has significantly gained relevance over the last years. The reasons for this are socio-political and economic changes that make diversity a highly relevant topic. In higher education, there is currently much discussion on...

Student loan debt and defaults have been steadily rising, igniting public worry about the associated public and private risks. This has led to controversial regulatory attempts to curb defaults by holding colleges, particularly those in the for-profit sector, increasingly accountable for the...