Students in some countries do far better on international achievement tests than students in other countries. Is this all due to differences in what students bring with them to school - socio-economic background, cultural factors, and the like? Or do school systems make a difference? This essay...

Students in some countries do far better on international achievement tests than students in other countries. Is this all due to differences in what students bring with them to school – socio-economic background, cultural factors, and the like? Or do school systems make a difference? This...

Differences in teacher quality are commonly cited as a key determinant of the huge international student performance gaps. However, convincing evidence on this relationship is still lacking, in part because it is unclear how to measure teacher quality consistently across countries. We use unique...

Differences in teacher quality are commonly cited as a key determinant of the huge international student performance gaps. However, convincing evidence on this relationship is still lacking, in part because it is unclear how to measure teacher quality consistently across countries. We use unique...

East Asian students regularly take top positions in international league tables of educational performance. Using internationally comparable student-level data, I estimate how family background and schooling policies affect student performance in five high-performing East Asian economies. Family...

We analyze the effect of school expenditure on children’s test scores at age 16 by means of an education production model. By using unique register data of English pupils, we exploit the availability of test scores across time, subjects and siblings to control for various sources of input...