Large classroom variance of student age is prevalent in developing countries, where achievement tends to be low. This paper investigates whether increased classroom age variance adversely affects mathematics and science achievement. Using exogenous variation in the variance of student age in...

This paper employs the synthetic control method to examine the impact of using a non-native language as the medium of instruction in schools on a student's learning. Exploiting an unanticipated policy change in Malaysia and using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science...

Students' out-of-school activities and time use can play a crucial role in facilitating school effectiveness. Using data from Seoul, South Korea, where the assignment of students into schools is random, we show that single-sex high schools affect the out-of-school activities of boys only, while...

We exploit the unique features of high schools in Seoul to study the effects of school autonomy on student outcomes. Under South Korea's equalization policy, both private and public schools in Seoul admit students that are assigned randomly to them, receive equal government funding, charge...

This paper presents measures of the research output of Australian economics departments. Our study covers the 640 academic staff at rank Lecturer and above in the 27 Australian universities with economics departments containing eight or more staff in April 2002. We construct publication measures...

A model of racial discrimination provides testable implications for two features of statistical discriminators: differential treatment of signals by race and heterogeneous experience that shapes perception. We construct an experiment in the U.S. rental apartment market that distinguishes...

We re-examine the findings in Park, Behrman, and Choi (2012) regarding the causal effects of single-sex schooling on South Korean high school seniors’ performance in the college entrance examination and college attendance. The results with an extra year of data indicate that single-sex schools...

This paper offers a novel explanation for why even high-performing individuals may have a high suicidal tendency when preferences are reference-dependent. Using survey data of South Korean secondary school students, this paper demonstrates that the relationship between suicidal ideation and test...

This paper examines whether abortion legalization in the United States during the early 1970s influenced women’s demand for pets later in life. We compare women who were granted early access to legal abortion during their peak childbearing years to women who were not in order to estimate their...

How students’ non-school inputs respond to ability grouping may explain the currently mixed findings in the literature about the impacts of tracking. Using data from South Korea, where students are randomized into middle schools under the country’s equalization policy, but sorted into...