We provide a measure of equality of educational opportunity in 54 countries, estimated as the effect of family background on student performance in two international TIMSS tests. We then show how organizational features of the education system affect equality of educational opportunity. Our...

Das Ziel eines jeden Bildungssystems sein muss es sein, allen Kindern weitestgehend unabhängig von ihrem sozioökonomischen Hintergrund die gleichen Möglichkeiten zur Entfaltung ihres Potentials zu bieten. Dass eine vollständige Entkoppelung von Merkmalen sozioökonomischer Herkunft und...

We examine the research productivity of German academic economists over their life cycles. It turns out that the career-patterns of research productivity as measured by journal publications are characterized by marked cohort effects. Moreover, the life-cycles of younger German economists are...

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According to the disciplining hypothesis, globalization restrains governments by inducing increased budgetary pressure. As a consequence, governments shift their expenditures in favour of transfers and subsidies and away from capital expenditures. This expenditure shift is potentially enhanced...

Max Weber attributed the higher economic prosperity of Protestant regions to aProtestant work ethic. We provide an alternative theory: Protestant economiesprospered because instruction in reading the Bible generated the human capital crucial to economic prosperity. We test the theory using...