In contrast to the popularity of financial education interventions worldwide, studies on the economic effects of those interventions report mixed results. With a focus on the effect on disadvantaged groups, we review both the theoretical and empirical findings in order to understand why this...

In contrast to the popularity of financial education interventions worldwide, studies on the economic effects of those interventions report mixed results. With a focus on the effect on disadvantaged groups, we review both the theoretical and empirical findings in order to understand why this...

This paper shows a somehow counterintuitive result: an increase in the exam difficulty may reduce the average quality (productivity) of selected individuals. Since the exam does not verify all skills, when its standard rises, candidates with relatively low skills emphasized in the test and high...

We use Swiss data to test whether intergenerational educational mobility is affected by the age at which children enroll in kindergarten. Taking advantage of heterogeneity across cantons we find that early kindergarten enrollment significantly increases educational mobility. -- Kindergarten ;...

This paper explores the power of personality traits both as predictors and as causes of academic and economic success, health, and criminal activity. Measured personality is interpreted as a construct derived from an economic model of preferences, constraints, and information. Evidence is...

This paper studies the extent to which young children develop their cognitive ability in high and low quality schools. We use a representative panel data set containing cognitive test scores of 4-6 year olds in Dutch schools. School quality is measured by the school's average achievement test...

Although previous research has shown that homework improves students' academic achievement, the majority of these studies use data on students' homework time from retrospective questionnaires, which are less accurate than time-diary data. However, most time-diary data sets do not contain outcome...

Even in OECD countries, where an increasing proportion of the workforce has a university degree, the value of basic skills in literacy and numeracy remains high. Indeed, in some countries the return for such skills, in the form of higher wages, is sufficiently large to suggest that they are in...

In this study I examine the impact of fluctuations in the unemployment rate before high school graduation on educational attainment measured 30 years later. I find evidence that educational attainment is countercyclical, as found in other studies, but also find that the impact of the...

This paper studies the educational consequences of language proficiency by investigating the relationship between dialect-speaking and academic performance of 5-6 year old children in the Netherlands. We find that dialect-speaking has a modestly negative effect on boys' language test scores. In...