Katharina Wedel prepared this study while she was working at the Center for the Economics of Education at the ifo Institute. The study was completed in September 2023 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at LMU Munich. It consists of four distinct empirical essays that...

Speeding up the rural industrialization and modernization in the development strategy of Vietnam has been considered as a very important task in the CPV and Vietnamese State’s agenda, given its contribution into the success of the country as a whole. The rural area in Vietnam has the...

In this paper we study the impact of programs meant to spread the use of ICTS for teaching purposes in Chile. In particular, we measure the impact of two initiatives of the Ministry of Education —“Funds for Broadband” (2006-2010) and “ICT in Classroom” (2007-2011) —, on the...

This paper examines the relative labor market gains for first-time college students who entered the North Carolina Community College System in 2002–2003. We compare the returns to diplomas, certificates, and degrees to the returns to some college credits. The authors also investigate the...

We set up a three-period overlapping generation model in which young individuals allocate their time to schooling and work, healthy middle aged individuals allocate their time to leisure and work and their income to consumption and savings for retirement, and old age individuals live off their...

This study reviews the impact of the global financial crisis on public service delivery in the Republic of Moldova1. It provides a background of the country's development in the period prior to the crisis (2000 to 2007/2008) and presents the factors which determined the country's fiscal...

We present new data documenting medieval Europe's Commercial Revolution using information on the establishment of markets in Germany. We use these data to test whether medieval universities played a causal role in expanding economic activity, examining the foundation of Germany's first...

This research explores the economic causes and consequences of language structures. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that variations in pre-industrial geographical characteristics that were conducive to higher return to agricultural investment, larger gender gap in...

This research explores the economic causes and consequences of language structures. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that variations in pre-industrial geographical characteristics that were conducive to higher return to agricultural investment, larger gender gap in...

"Statistical adequacy" is an important prerequisite for securing reliable inference in empirical modelling. This paper argues for more emphasis on replication that specifically assesses whether the results reported in empirical studies are based on statistically adequate models, i.e., models...