This study was prepared by Elke Lüdemann while she was working in the Department Human Capital and Innovation of the Ifo Institute. It was completed in July 2011 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Economics Department of the University of Munich (LMU). The subject of this study is a micro...

This research gives the magnitude, evolution and characteristics of academic and socioeconomic polarization in the Chilean school system. After examining the importance of the education system as a means of social cohesion, we analyze the implications of distribution processes of students in...

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 tests if gender-discrimination in grading affects pupils' achievements and course choices. I use a unique dataset containing grades given by teachers, scores obtained anonymously by pupils at different ages, and their course choice during high school. Based on double-differences, the...

This volume was prepared by Marc Piopiunik while he has been working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in June 2011 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes four self-contained empirical studies. All studies aim at...

The existence of gender gaps in test scores has been documented in the relevant literature for a wide range of countries. In particular, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by the OECD over the past ten years reveals that on average female students underperform...

This study examines the effects of the extension of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years in Turkey in 1997 – which involved substantial investment in school infrastructure – on schooling outcomes and, in particular, on the equality of these outcomes between men and women, and urban and...

The main contribution of this paper is to provide researchers with a new estimation method suitable for censored models with two high dimensional fixed effects. This new estimation method is based on a sequence of least squares regressions. In practice, use of this method can result in...

We try to explain the differences between the performance (in both reading and math) of 8430 15-year-old daughters and 8526 15-year-old sons in 17 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development destination countries across Europe and Oceania with the PISA 2009 data from 45 origin...

I survey the evidence on patterns in U.S. high school graduation rates over the period 1970-2010 and report the results of new research conducted to fill in holes in the evidence. I begin by pointing out the strengths and limitations of existing data sources. I then describe six striking...