Transitional Kindergarten (TK) is a relatively recent entrant into the U.S. early education landscape, combining features of public pre-K and regular kindergarten. We provide the first estimates of the impact of Michigan's TK program on 3rd grade test scores. Using an augmented regression...

This paper presents an analysis of the longer-run effects of a college-preparatory program implemented in inner-city schools that provided teacher training in addition to payments to eleventh- and twelfth- grade students and their teachers for passing scores on Advanced Placement (AP) exams....

In a simple theoretical model we show that impatience affects academic performance through two different channels: impatient students spend less effort in studying activities and set less ambitious objectives in terms of grades at exams. As a consequence, the relationship between impatience and...

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act compelled states to design school-accountability systems based on annual student assessments. The effect of this Federal legislation on the distribution of student achievement is a highly controversial but centrally important question. This study presents...

This paper examines the role of educational expectations in the educational attainment process. We utilize data from a variety of datasets to document and analyze the trends in educational expectations between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s. We focus on differences across racial/ethnic and...

Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ), which combines community investments with reform minded charter schools, is one of the most ambitious social experiments to alleviate poverty of our time. We provide the first empirical test of the causal impact of HCZ on educational outcomes, with an eye toward...

While is it widely accepted that adults with poor reading skills have inferior labour market outcomes, little is known about whether low reading proficiency in school is a precursor to inferior labour market outcomes in adulthood. We fill this gap in the literature using education and labour...

In OECD countries, ‘real world’ upper-secondary vocational education and training (VET) programs are used to engage less academically oriented youth in learning, while helping to prepare them for post-school work and/or further training. In general terms, VET programs with high employer...

This paper calls for the massive redesign of U.S. intercollegiate athletics departments in light of their widespread and fundamental failure to serve a bona fide student affairs mission. Part I of this article discusses the general purpose of student affairs departments within the broader...

The study here analyzes, across European countries, the relationship between labour and drivers of technological innovation, also considering the interaction of these variables with the structural indicator of the public debt. The main findings are: the fruitful effect of total public...