This paper exploits a unique universal educational policy - implemented in most German states between 2001 and 2008 - that compressed the academic-track high school curriculum into a (one year) shorter time span, thereby increasing time of instruction and share of curriculum taught per grade....

Over the 2000s, many federal states in Germany shortened the duration of secondary school by one year while keeping the curriculum unchanged. Exploiting quasi-experimental variation due to the staggered introduction of this reform allows me to identify the causal effect of increased learning...

Policy-makers face a trade-off between the provision of higher levels of schooling and earlier labour market entries. A fundamental education reform in Germany tackles this trade-off by reducing high school by one year while leaving the total instructional time unchanged. Employing...

Firms may invest in ICT capital to enhance the productivity of agents on tasks where output depends on talent. When firms use costly education as a signal of comparative advantage for equilibrium task allocation, a low price of education leads to too few, and a high price of education leads to...

How can colleges find successful applicants? Criteria such as GPA, interviews, essays, and tests provide information about candidates, but which work and why? We shed light on these questions using unique data on the universe of objective and subjective rankings of all college applicants in...

How can colleges find successful applicants? Criteria such as GPA, interviews, essays, and tests provide information about candidates, but which work and why? We shed light on these questions using unique data on the universe of objective and subjective rankings of all college applicants in...

How can colleges find successful applicants? Criteria such as GPA, interviews, essays, and tests provide information about candidates, but which work and why? We shed light on these questions using unique data on the universe of objective and subjective rankings of all college applicants in...

We use randomized program offers and multiple follow-up survey waves to examine the effects of entrepreneurship training on a broad set of outcomes. Training increases short-run business ownership and employment, but there is no evidence of broader or longer-run effects. We also test whether...

We evaluate the impact of the Gambian hardship allowance, which provides a salary premium of 30-40% to primary school teachers in remote locations, on the distribution and characteristics of teachers across schools. A geographic discontinuity in the policy's implementation and the presence of...

The education system has reacted slowly to changes in labour market needs, leading to an increasing number of school leavers without sufficient qualification. In addition, declining PISA scores and a rising share of low achievers are raising concerns about the quality of the future labour force....