The question of how technology affects learning has been at the center of recent debates over educational inputs. In 1994, the Israeli State Lottery sponsored the installation of computers in many elementary and middle schools. This program provides an opportunity to estimate the impact of...

This study was prepared by Gabriela Schütz while she was working with the Ifo Institute for Economic Research. It was completed in September 2008 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Economics Department of the University of Munich (LMU). The topic of this study is an econometric analysis...

We use the PISA student-level achievement database to estimate international education production functions. Student characteristics, family backgrounds, home inputs, resources, teachers and institutions are all significantly related to math, science and reading achievement. Our models account...

In the public discourse, education is usually considered as the main vehicle for the promotion of social equality and social mobility. The paper surveys the existing literature and concludes that the relationship between education and inequality in Greece is strong. Inequities are evident at all...

Children in foster care encounter numerous obstacles to educational success, leading to life outcomes poorer than those of their peers. Combined with higher rates of behavioral disorders and absenteeism, lower academic performance contributes to increased rates of referral to special education....

We examine the differences in an index of standardized test performance of urban private/public school seniors by race, using a sample of 4,172 students from the 1992 U.S. National Education Longitudinal Survey. In addition to using 257 exogenous variables to control for individual traits,...

Using a discontinuity in the funding scheme, we evaluate the impact of home visits and child care centers on poor children and mothers in Ecuador. We find that home visits are beneficial for children's cognitive outcomes and health and for mothers' psychological well-being but reduce mothers'...

Charter schools and special education for disabled students are founded on conflicting education reforms and agency oversight principles. Charter schools operate in a culture of regulatory freedom and flexibility. They arose out of the modern era accountability reform movement, in which student...

This paper estimates the impact of peer achievement and variance on math achievement growth. It exploits exogenous variation in peer characteristics generated at the transition to upper-secondary school in a sample of Berlin fifth graders. Parents and schools are barely able to condition their...

This paper provides evidence on the sources of the persisting mathematics test score gap between boys and girls. In particular, we investigate the role of the share of female mathematics teachers in secondary school and of pupils self-confidence and extrinsic motivation in mathematics. We find...