Incentives are widely used to increase people's effort and thus performance. Whileacademic achievement depends heavily on effort, there is little empirical evidence onhow students respond to incentives other than grades and monetary rewards. We drawon two natural experiments that occurred at a...

We study whether raising instructional time can crowd out student pro-social behaviour. To this end, we exploit a large educational reform in Germany that has raised weekly instructional time for high school students by 12.5% as a quasi-natural experiment. We find that this rise has a negative...

Seit das Bundesverfassungsgericht 2005 das Verbot von Studiengebühren aufgehoben hat, haben sieben Bundesländer Studiengebühren von bis zu 500 Euro pro Semester eingeführt. Eine Studie des DIW Berlin zeigt, dass dies zu Ausweichreaktionen der Studienbewerber geführt hat, die zahlenmäßig...

Several German states recently introduced tuition fees for university education. We investigate whether these tuition fees influence the mobility of university applicants. Based on administrative data of applicants for medical schools in Germany, we estimate the effect of tuition fees on the...

Several German states recently introduced tuition fees for university education. We investigate whether these tuition fees influence the mobility of university applicants. Based on administrative data of applicants for medical schools in Germany, we estimate the effect of tuition fees on the...

Less than a decade ago, several German states introduced tuition fees for university education. Despite their comparatively low level, fees were perceived by the public to increase social injustice, and have been abolished. Whereas other studies have shown no effect on enrollment, we analyze the...

Less than a decade ago, several German states introduced tuition fees for university education. Despite their comparatively low level of about €500 per semester, fees were perceived by the public to increase social injustice and have been abolished recently. Whereas other studies have shown no...

There is a well established socioeconomic gradient in educational attainment, despite much effort in recent decades to address this inequality. This study evaluates a university access program that provides financial, academic and social support to low socioeconomic status (SES) students using a...

This paper demonstrates that short-term peer exposure can generate achievement effects which persist for several months and years. I study a mandatory freshmen week for first-year undergraduates and exploit the random assignment of students to freshmen teams. I find that the freshmen week...

Gender segregation in the labor market may be explained by women's re-luctance to choose technical occupations, although the foundations for career choices are certainly laid earlier, during education. Educational experts claim that female students are doing better in math and science and are...