Long-run per capita economic growth is driven by productivity growth. Major determinants of productivity are investments in education and research, and the intensity of competition on product markets. While these ideas have been incorporated into modern growth theories and tested in empirical...

This paper evaluates the effects of a special program designed to increase school enrolment and employment among multi-problem youths. Treated youths are guided by personal coaches and receive a comprehensive treatment of educational, work, and health services. We investigate the impact of the...

This paper investigates the effect of coaching in vocational education on school dropout using data from a randomized experiment. We find that one year of coaching reduces school dropout by more than 40 percent from 17 to 10 percentage points. The reduction in school dropout results from two...

Early school-leaving is considered to be one of the major problems in Dutch education. In order to reduce the number of dropouts in the school year 2006-2007 the Dutch government has offered a financial incentive scheme to 14 out of 39 regions. This scheme provides a reward of 2000 euro per...

This paper examines the impact of early tracking on enrollment in and completion of higher education. We compare pupils that are directly tracked in lower general secondary education (‘mavo’) to pupils that postpone their choice of education level by entering secondary education in...

A shortage of teachers in primary and secondary schools in the Netherlands is expected in the near future as a large part of the current workforce will retire. Recently, the Dutch government has decided to increase wages of teachers. This paper qualitatively assesses the impact of three...

This report surveys the recent literature on human capital and productivity. Recent studies suggest that the right-hand side of the skill distribution is important for productivity, especially in countries that already have a high level of productivity. An empirical analysis of the Dutch skill...

Knowledge policy is widely considered to be an important subject. The Dutch government conducts intensive policy on the foundations of the knowledge economy: education, research and innovation. <span style="color: #000000;">In the literature and in policy circles, proposals for additional knowledge policies or reforms of...</span>