We analyze the causal effect of education on old-age cognitive abilities using German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data and regional variation in mandatory years of schooling and the supply of schools. Our outcome variable is the score an individual reaches in an ultra-short intelligence test. We...

This paper evaluates the effect of becoming citizen of the host-country at birth on educational outcomes of immigrant children in Germany. We exploit the introduction of birthright citizenship for newborn children in Germany starting on the 1st of January, 2000, to obtain...

Given a severe nurse shortage in Switzerland, this paper investigates Swiss students choice for nursing college education and the impact of their ex ante wage expectations on college enrolment. The analysis contributes to a small developing literature that uses subjective wage expectation data...

Does granting citizenship at birth help immigrant children to integrate in the host country's educational system and thus, to promote their educational success? Our identification strategy is based on a reform of the German naturalization law in 2000. We exploit this natural experiment and use a...

This paper uses a rich dataset derived from a three-year survey to gain insights about the informational background of University applicants. We analyze the extent to which students expectations of their starting and future salary depend on different characteristics. More precisely, the paper...

While there is a big literature on the benefits of pre-school education, only little is known why kindergarten attendance improves later-life outcomes. This is partly because most studies analyze the effect of complete 2 years pre-school programs. In order to shed light into the black box of...

Recent studies focused on testing the Easterlin hypothesis (happiness and national income correlate in the cross-section but not over time) on a global level. We make a case for testing the Easterlin hypothesis at the country level where individual panel data allow exploiting important...

Higher education is subsidized worldwide, although with pronounced differences in levels of subsidization. While public funds account for about 90% of universities budgets in Scandinavian countries, the share of public funds in Great Britain and the US is less that 30%. Subsidization is...

The direct democratic choice of an examination standard, i.e., a performance level required to graduate, is evaluated against a utilitarian welfare function. It is shown that the median preferred standard is inefficiently low if the marginal cost of reaching a higher performance reacts more...

We benefit from the Bologna reform to show how course and program policies affect academic achievement. We examine two similar programs at the business school of a major European university, which were both reformed. Time lags in the reforms allow us to estimate the difference in the differences...