This paper explores students' expectations about the returns to completing higher education and provides first evidence on \textit{perceived} signaling and human capital effects. We elicit counterfactual labor market expectations for the hypothetical scenarios of leaving university with or...

This paper explores students' expectations about the returns to completing higher education and provides first evidence on perceived signaling and human capital effects. We elicit counterfactual labor market expectations for the hypothetical scenarios of leaving university with or without a...

Although recent evidence suggests that the aggregate gender gap in access to Higher Education in Peru has been closed, differences in enrollment between the poor and the rich are still notably larger among girls. This paper explores the factors behind these gender differences in access to Higher...

University autonomy and funding is an important aspect in university-level education due to its impact on graduates’ competencies, and on the quality and quantity of research produced. Political factors influence the amount of autonomy allotted to public universities in specific countries....

This dissertation consists of four distinct empirical essays that address various aspects of the economics of education. Chapters 2 and 3 show that patience and risk-taking as intertemporal preferences are closely related to differences in student achievement across and within countries. Chapter...

Sarah Gust führte diese Studie während ihrer Tätigkeit am ifo Institut durch. Die Studie wurde im September 2024 abgeschlossen und als Dissertation an der Volkswirtschaftlichen Fakultät der LMU München angenommen. Sie besteht aus drei eigenständigen empirischen Essays, die...

While many studies examine the effect of primary education quality on labor market outcomes in developing countries, little is known about the effects at higher levels. We exploit the quasi-experiment provided by a large-scale education reform launched in Senegal in 2000 to investigate how...

We investigate the short- and long-term effects of economic conditions at high-school graduation as a source of exogenous variation in the labor-market opportunities of potential college entrants. Exploiting business cycle fluctuations across birth cohorts for 28 developed countries, we find...

We use a randomized controlled trial to examine the short- and mid-term impacts of a best-practice training program on (non-)employment outcomes in Ghana. Overall the program did not affect core labor market outcomes at the extensive (employment) and intensive (hours of work, income) margin, but...