In this paper, we use data from the German PISA 2003 sample to study the effects of central exit examinations on student performance, student attitudes, and teacher behavior. Unlike earlier studies we use (i) a value-added measure to pin down the effect of central exit exams on learning in 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...

This paper studies the effect of teacher expectations on essay grades in an experimental setting. To this purpose, we randomly assign Turkish or German first names to a set of essays so that some teachers believe a given essay was written by a German native pupil, whereas others believe it was...

Jungen hinken in der Schule den Mädchen hinterher. Männliche Lehrkräfte wirken sich nicht positiv auf den Bildungserfolg von Jungen aus. Der pauschale Ruf nach mehr Männern im Lehramt kann sogar nachteilige Folgen für die Kompetenzentwicklung von Jungen und Mädchen haben.