We contribute to the literature on relative age effects on pupils’ (non-cognitive) skills formation by studying students’ social network. We investigate data on European adolescents from the Health Behaviour in School Aged Children survey and use an instrumental variables approach to account...

This is the first study to investigate whether age gaps between classmates (that is, relative age) affect life-satisfaction gaps in adolescence. To this end, we analyse data from the multi-country Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey. We find evidence that relative age...

This study investigates whether the choice for a vocationally versus a generally oriented higher education program entails a trade-off between higher employment chances and better matches at the start of the career (when opting for a vocational orientation) and a lower risk of bad match...

We investigate the impact of student work experience on later hiring chances. To completely rule out potential endogeneity, we present a field experiment in which various forms of student work experience are randomly disclosed by more than 1000 fictitious graduates applying for jobs in Belgium....

A dynamic discrete choice model is set up to estimate the effects of grade retention in high school, both in the short- (end-of-year evaluation) and long-run (drop-out and delay). In contrast to regression discontinuity designs, this approach captures treatment heterogeneity and controls for...

A dynamic discrete choice model is set up to estimate the effects of grade retention in high school, both in the short- (end-of-year evaluation) and long-run (drop-out and delay). In contrast to regression discontinuity designs, this approach captures treatment heterogeneity and controls for...

We test the basic assumption underlying the job competition and crowding out hypothesis: that employers always prefer higher educated to lower educated individuals. To this end, we conduct a randomised field experiment in which duos of fictitious applications by bachelor and master graduates are...

We contribute to the literature on relative age effects on pupils' (non-cognitive) skills formation by studying students' social network. We investigate data on European adolescents from the Health Behaviour in School Aged Children survey and use an instrumental variables approach to account for...

This is the first study to investigate whether age gaps between classmates (that is, relative age) affect life-satisfaction gaps in adolescence. To this end, we analyse data from the multi-country Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey. We find evidence that relative age...

This study examines the impact of enrolling into dual apprenticeship programs in secondary education on six early employment outcomes. Our contribution to the literature is threefold. First, we estimate – within the same, Belgian secondary education framework – the effects of two distinct...