This paper studies heterogeneity in schooling decisions by socio-economic status (SES) in response to a repeal of achievement-based admissions requirements (i.e. binding track recommendations) in Germany's between-school tracking system. The main contribution is to show that while previously...

The paper examines the effect of access to universities on education and migration decisions of young adults. So far, studies on the causal effect of education on mobility have mainly focused on labor market mobility of high-skilled workers after finishing their educational career, due to the...

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state’s education...

This volume was prepared by Constantin Mang while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes a short introduction and four self-contained chapters that focus on ICT...

In response to PISA, all German federal states but one have adopted central exit examinations (CEEs) at the end of all secondary school tracks. Theoretically, the advantages of CEEs are fairly undisputed. CEEs make teaching and learning output observable and comparable across schools, and...

Die Neugründung und der Ausbau von Hochschulen gehören zu dem gängigen Instrumenten der regionalen Strukturpolitik. Welche Auswirkungen aber hat die Existenz einer Hochschule in ökonomischer Hinsicht tatsächlich für eine Region? Das vorliegende Paper analysiert und vergleicht die...

This paper analyzes the effect of alternative transition paths after grade 9 of German lower secondary school on vocational training. Using a selection-on-observables approach I show that a delayed transition into vocational training after lower track secondary school is not a disadvantage...

This paper studies responses to high-stakes incentives arising from early ability tracking. We use three complementary research designs exploiting differences in school track admission rules at the end of primary school in Germany's early ability tracking system. Our results show that the need...

Starting in 2009, the German state of Saxony distributed sports club membership vouchers among all 33,000 third graders in the state. The policy's objective was to encourage them to develop a long-term habit of exercising. In 2018, we carried out a large register-based survey among several...

This volume was prepared by Benedikt Siegler while working at the Center for the Economics of Education of the Ifo Institute. It was completed in June 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich (LMU) in November 2014. The thesis includes...