We implement a teaching methodology aimed at improving primary school children's mathematical skills. The methodology, grounded in active and cooperative learning, focuses on peer interaction, sharing of ideas, learning from mistakes, and problem solving. We evaluate the causal effect of the...

This paper explores how non-college occupations contributed to the gender gap in college enrollment, where women overtook men in college-going. Using instrumental variation from routinization, we show that the decline of routine-intensive occupations displaced the non-college occupations of...

This study examines the gendered effects of early and sustained exposure to high-performing peers on female educational trajectories. Exploiting random allocation to classrooms within middle schools, we measure the effect of male and female high performers on girls' high school placement...

This paper investigates how exposure to higher-achieving male and female peers in university affects students' major choices and labor market outcomes. For identification of causal effects, we exploit the random assignment of students to university sections in first-year compulsory courses. We...

This paper investigates how the peer gender composition in university affects students' major choices and labor market outcomes. Women who are randomly assigned to more female peers become less likely to choose male-dominated majors, and they end up in jobs in which they work fewer hours and...

This paper investigates empirically how and why men and women are different in their confidence levels. Using the data of the PISA test in math, confidence is decomposed into two dimensions: confidence in correct math knowledge and overconfidence in over-claiming false knowledge. The findings...

This paper investigates how exposure to higher-achieving male and female peers in university affects students’ major choices and labor market outcomes. For identification of causal effects, we exploit the random assignment of students to university sections in first-year compulsory courses. We...

This study examines the gendered effects of early and sustained exposure to high-performing peers on female educational trajectories. Exploiting random allocation to classrooms within middle schools, we measure the effect of male and female high performers on girls' high school placement...

Elisabeth Grewenig prepared this study while she was working at the Center for Economics of Education at the ifo Institute. The study was completed in March 2021 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the LMU Munich. It consists of five distinct empirical essays that...

We document gender differences in reactions to failure in the National College Entrance Exam, an extremely high-stakes exam that solely determines college admission outcomes for almost all teenagers in China. Using unique administrative data in Ningxia Province and a regression-discontinuity...