The reversing achievement gap across genders observed in many countries has led to a heated debate on the persistent gap in academia and other top fields. Using Turkish administrative data and the particular institutional characteristics, this pa- per aims to analyze the gender gap in...

A large literature documents a positive correlation between parental income and child test scores. In this paper, we study whether this relationship, the dependence of the cognitive skills of children on the socioeconomic resources of their parents, varies across race. Using education data...

We study whether racial disparities in economic opportunity appear at an early age. Using administrative education data linked to tax records, we study the income-achievement gap across different races and find important variation. The income-achievement gap is small for East Asian children...

We extend the analysis of early-emerging gender differences in academic achievement to include both (objective) test scores and (subjective) teacher assessments. Using data from the 1998-99 ECLS-K cohort, we show that the grades awarded by teachers are not aligned with test scores, with the...

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...

Using Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data for Egypt in 2007, this paper examines the determinants and gender inequality of educational attainment (test scores in Mathematics and Science). The complicated structure of the data is carefully addressed during all...

In the past 15 years, four-year-olds' enrollment in state-funded pre-kindergarten in the United States has doubled, and advocates have pushed for further expansion. Although research has shown that pre-K programs can have important benefits, most existing studies have focused on small or...

Nonmedical exemptions from school-entry vaccine mandates are receiving increased policy and public health scrutiny. This paper examines how expanding the availability of exemptions influences vaccination rates in early childhood and academic achievement in middle school. We leverage 2003...

We study the effect of school closures and the transition from on-site to on-line teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Finnish upper secondary schools. To identify the effects we exploit variation in the length of school closure periods across schools between autumn 2020 and spring 2021....

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...