In Germany and many other countries, students are tracked into various secondary school types. This paper studies whether parents or teachers assess students potential educational performance more adequately. Educational attainment is measured by grade retention rates. We take advantage of a...

The paper adds to the literature on extracurricular early childhood education and child development by exploiting unique data on an educational project in Germany, the Junior University (JU). By utilizing a quasi-experimental study design we estimate the causal short-term effect of JU enrollment...

Most studies find little to no effect of classroom computers on student achievement. We suggest that this null effect may combine positive effects of computer uses without equivalently effective alternative traditional teaching practices and negative effects of uses that substitute more...

Since 2007, the Ecuadorian government has required teacher candidates to pass national skill and content knowledge tests before they are allowed to participate in merit-based selection competitions for tenured positions at public schools in an attempt to raise teacher quality. We evaluate the...

Taxation changes the expectations of prospective university students about their future level and uncertainty of after-tax income. To estimate the impact of taxes on university enrollment, we estimate a structural microeconometric model, in which a high-school graduate decides to enter...

I investigate whether faculty quality and department size affect the productivity of scientists. The endogeneity problems related to estimating these effects are addressed by using the dismissal of science professors by the Nazi government as a source of exogenous variation. While local faculty...

Following German reunification the East German states were confronted with the need to adapt their schooling system to quality criteria settled by the western states. Most importantly this included an extension of high school education by one year. We use this variation in high school duration...

Research on educational disadvantages of second-generation immigrants largely focuses on differences in student achievement tests. Exploiting data from the German PIRLS Extension, we provide evidence that second-generation immigrants face an additional disadvantage when tracked into different...

This paper investigates the role of early life adversity and home resources in terms of competence formation and school achievement based on data from an epidemiological cohort study following 364 children from birth to adolescence. Results indicate that organic and psychosocial risks present in...