This study analyzes school dropout in rural Guatemala using event history data and unusually detailed data on schools and teachers. Significant results for language of instruction, teacher education and fighting between students demonstrate the importance of accounting for school context...

The many and varied links between student socio-economic status and educational outcomes have been well documented in the South African economics of education literature. The strong legacy of apartheid and the consequent correlation between education and wealth have meant that, generally...

The ratio of skilled-to-unskilled labour stocks in the economy is widely acknowledged to have an important role for development. Can education policy affect the evolution of this ratio? This paper shows that it can: it also shows that the effect of education policy, for a given budget size,...

Akerlof and Kranton (2002) model the effects of student identity on achievement. They argue that students have identities that determine the effort expended on learning. Academic achievement within a school depends on the match between student identities and academic and disciplinary standards....

This paper analyses the determinants of participation in higher education in West Germany. In particular, the role of social origin as well as of expectations regarding the labour market outcome of a higher education degree and of public educational policy are examined. The estimations are based...

Many developing countries are allocating significant resources to expanding technology access in schools. Whether these investments will translate into measurable educational improvements remains an open question because of the limited evidence available. This paper contributes to filling that...

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...

This paper analyses the determinants of participation in higher education in West Germany. In particular, the role of social origin as well as of expectations regarding the labour market outcome of a higher education degree and of public educational policy are examined. The estimations are based...