Low aspirations can limit households’ investments and contribute to sustained poverty. Vice versa, increased aspirations can lead to investment and upward mobility. Yet how aspirations are formed is not always well understood. This paper analyzes the role of social interactions in determining...

Diese Dissertation besteht aus fünf Aufsätzen aus den Bereichen Arbeitsmarkt- und Bildungsökonomie. Das Ziel der Dissertation ist es, ein Verständnis für die Faktoren zu entwickeln, die individuelle Bildungsziele und individuelles Arbeitsangebot determinieren. Die Hauptmotivation dieser...

Individuals differ not only by gender and hair color, they also exhibit heterogeneities in various probably not fully genetically determined dimensions as personality, preferences and skills. Moreover, individuals live in different social environments and yield unequal life outcomes as health or...

While the current empirical literature on peer group effects in schools highlights that credible causal peer effects cannot be estimated unless parental sorting is taken into account, the present paper highlights that causal peer effects might be conditional on the learning environment in which...