In this paper, we investigate sibling correlations in educational outcomes, which serve as a broad measure of the importance of family and community background. Making use of rich longitudinal survey and register data for Denmark, our main aim is to identify the parental background...

I use a combination of blind and non-blind test scores to show that middle school teachers favor girls when they grade. This favoritism, estimated in the form of individual teacher effects, has long-term consequences: as measured by their national evaluations three years later, male students...

This study uses a unique dataset to investigate university access, throughput, and dropout for the 2008 South African national matric cohort. The findings show that university access in South Africa is limited, even among learners who perform relatively well in matric. In addition, those who do...

We design and implement a field experiment that provides students from less advantaged backgrounds with individualized feedback on academic performance during the transition from middle to high school. The intervention reduces the gap between expected and actual performance, as well as shrinks...

Switzerland changed its migration policy in the 1990s from a "non-qualified only" policy to one of almost free movement of labor. To analyze the impact of this policy change on the schooling outcomes of children of first-generation migrants, the paper compares the PISA results of...

This paper examines how banning affirmative action in university admissions affects both overall academic achievement and the racial gap in academic achievement prior to college entry. Focusing on college-bound high school students, we use a difference-in-difference methodology to analyze the...

Die Bildungsmobilität in Deutschland ist von Bildungsaufstiegen geprägt. So ist der Bildungsabschluss von knapp einem Drittel der Personen im Alter zwischen 35 und 44 Jahren in Deutschland höher als der Abschluss ihres Vaters. Nur etwa knapp ein Fünftel hat einen niedrigeren...

Junge Menschen bleiben in Deutschland selten ohne berufsqualifizierenden Abschluss. Konnten im Jahr 2005 noch 16,5 Prozent aller Personen im Alter zwischen 20 und 29 Jahren, die sich nicht mehr in der Ausbildung befanden, keinen beruflichen Abschluss vorzeigen, waren es im Jahr 2011 nur 13,4...

Die Einkommensperspektiven junger Menschen in Deutschland hängen sehr stark von ihrem Bildungsniveau ab. So zählen 31,5 Prozent der Personen ohne einen beruflichen Abschluss zum untersten Fünftel der Einkommensverteilung, bei den Hochschulabsolventen sind es nur 7,4 Prozent. Daher ist das...

We study how a large household windfall affects sorting of relatively disadvantaged youth over high school tracks by exploiting the discontinuity in the assignment of a welfare program in Mexico. The in-cash transfer is found to significantly increase the probability of selecting vocational...