We estimate a dynamic learning model of the college dropout decision, taking advantage of unique expectations data to greatly reduce our reliance on assumptions that would otherwise be necessary for identification. We find that forty-five percent of the dropout that occurs in the first two...

In this paper, we formulate a model of early childhood development in which mothers have subjective expectations about the technology of skill formation. The model is useful for understanding how maternal knowledge about child development affects the maternal choices of investments in the human...

Political regimes influence the contents of education and the criteria used to select and evaluate students. We study the impact of a socialist education on the likelihood of obtaining a college degree, as well as on several labor market outcomes, by exploiting the reorganization of the school...

We assess the relevance of formal education on the productivity of the self-employed and distinguish between opportunity entrepreneurs, who voluntarily pursue a business opportunity, and necessity entrepreneurs, who lack alternative employment options. We expect differences in the returns to...

This paper studies intergenerational transmission of cognitive abilities from parents to children. We create a measure of parental cognitive evolution across time, which combines cognitive tests scores obtained at the age of 16 with the ones at the age of 50. We are thus able to identify...

This paper estimates the gender-specific effects of birthweight on a variety of schooling and labor market outcomes. A unique feature of the study is to use micro evidence on the relationship between birthweight—an early measure of nutritional advantage—and schooling outcomes to make...

This paper analyzes the effects of an educational system expansion on labour market outcomes, drawing upon a 15-year natural experiment in the Russian Federation. Regional increases in student intake capacities in Russian universities, a result of educational reforms, provide a plausibly...

Estimates of intergenerational economic mobility that use point in time measures of income and earnings suffer from lifecycle and attenuation bias. We consider these issues for the National Child Development Study (NCDS) and British Cohort Study (BCS) for the first time, highlighting how common...

We build a unique dataset of 300,000 famous people born between Hammurabi's epoch and 1879, Einstein's birth year. It includes, among other variables, the vital dates, occupations, and locations of celebrities from the Index Bio-bibliographicus Notorum Hominum (IBN), a very comprehensive...

This paper provides a statistical overview of three new cognitive ability measures collected in wave 12 of the HILDA Survey: (i) Backwards Digit Span; (ii) the Symbol Digits Modalities Test; and (iii) a 25-item version of the National Adult Reading Test. The paper: analyses willingness to...