This paper studies how different demographic groups respond to incentives by comparing performance in the GRE examination in "high" and "low" stakes situations. The high stakes situation is the real GRE examination and the low stakes situation is a voluntary experimental section of the GRE that...

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive and up-to-date snapshot of the most important postsecondary education and labor market outcomes in the U.S. using two nationally representative sources of data: The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and The National Educational...

We study students' motives for educational attainment in a unique survey of 885 secondary school students in the UK. As expected, students who perceive the monetary returns to education to be higher are more likely to intend to continue in full-time education. However, the main driver is the...

We study students' motives for educational attainment in a unique survey of 885 secondary school students in the UK. As expected, students who perceive the monetary returns to education to be higher are more likely to intend to continue in full-time education. However, the main driver is the...

There is a large gender gap in the probability of being in a "top job" in mid-career. Top jobs bring higher earnings, and also have more job security and better career trajectories. Recent literature has raised the possibility that some of this gap may be attributable to women not "leaning in"...

Women used to lag behind but now exceed men in college enrollment. This paper shows that examining occupations which require only a high school degree ("non-college" occupations) can help resolve two puzzles related to this phenomenon. First, why do women attend college at greater rates than men...

We show the math gender gap is correlated with women's career outcomes using international geographic data on the investment profession, a math-intensive and 80% male profession. The math gender gap predicts the proportion of investment professionals who are women across countries and across...

Differences in pay between women and men in the same jobs have captured the public's attention in recent years. However, public interest in and press coverage of salary differences on the basis of gender—or any other ascriptive class—in the learned professions are wanting. Moreover, few...

In the last decades the US economy experienced a rise in female labor force participation, a reversal of the gender education gap and a closing of the gender wage gap. Importantly, these changes occurred at a substantially different pace over time. During the same period, workers in the US faced...

We use random assignment of general practitioners (GPs) to provide the first evidence on the effects of female role models in childhood on the long-run educational outcomes of girls. We find that girls who are exposed to female GPs in childhood are significantly more likely to sort into...