Research has shown that giving disadvantaged families financial incentives to invest in their children could decrease socioeconomic inequality by enhancing human capital formation. Yet, within the household how are such gains achieved? We use a field experiment to investigate how parents...

This study analyses which individual and institutional factors (causally) influence individuals in their educational career and in their choice for an occupation. Chapter 2 explores consequences of parental separation for cognitive skill development of children. In the year before parental...

We analyze the impact of expansion of higher education on student outcomes in the context of competition among colleges which differentiate themselves horizontally by setting curricular standards. When public or economic pressures compel less selective colleges to lower their curricular demands,...

This paper analyzes the impact of college enrollment expansion on student academic achievements and labor market outcomes in the context of competition among colleges. When public policies promote “access” to college education, colleges adjust their curricula: Less selective public colleges...

Whether early school stratification is conducive or detrimental to scholastic performance has been subject to controversial debates in educational policy and science across many countries. We exploit a unique exogenous variation in Lower Saxony, Germany, where performance based tracking was...

In Germany, the poor performance in PISA 2000 stimulated a heated public debate and a strong policy response. The government reacted to the low average and remarkable disparities registered by the test, and spurred reforms led to a significant improvement in the country fs educational...

The effects of early school stratification on scholastic performance have been subject to controversial debates in educational policy and science. We exploit a unique variation in Lower Saxony, Germany, where performance based tracking was preponed from grade 7 to grade 5 in 2004. We measure the...

Our objective is to analyse the role of teacher and school quality to explain differences in students' educational outcomes. With this aim, we use PISA microdata for 10 middle income and 2 high income countries and we apply decomposition methods in order to identify the role of these factors for...

Tradable permits are now widely used to control pollution. We investigate the implications of setting up such a system in another area – population control – either domestically or at the global level. We first generalize the framework with both tradable procreation allowances and tradable...