In this paper we explore the effects of a labor market reform that changed the statutory minimum working age in Spain in 1980. In particular, the reform raised the statutory minimum working age from 14 to 16 years old, while the minimum age for attaining compulsory education was kept at 14 until...

Educational tracking seeks to group students by unobserved ability using measures of observable acquired skills. In a model where individuals have differential skills prior to beginning formal education due to differences in early childhood development (e.g. linguistic, cultural, or nutritional...

Studies on the intergenerational transmission of human capital usually assume a one-way spillover from parents to children. But what if children also affect their parents' human capital? Using exogenous variation in education, arising from a Swedish compulsory schooling reform in the 1950s and...

Education is often regarded as a route to social mobility. For this to be the case, however, the link between family background and adult outcomes must be broken (or at least reduced) once we take account of an individual's education history. This paper focuses on individuals who have completed...

We study the determinants of youth crime using a dynamic discrete choice model of crime and education. We allow past education and criminal activities to affect current crime and educational decisions. We take advantage of a rich panel dataset on serious juvenile offenders, the Pathways to...

The current study examines earnings differences for practicing lawyers by undergraduate major with a focus on economics majors. Some majors do much better than others. Economics majors tend to do very well in both median and mean earnings, and both without and with controlling for individual...

We study the relationship between migration and children's education in Tajikistan – one of the poorest and most remittance-dependent economies in the world. The analysis of a unique three-wave household panel survey reveals that emigration of family members is negatively associated with...

Children from disadvantaged families have lower levels of school readiness when they enter school than do children from more advantaged families. Many countries have tried to reduce this inequality through publicly provided preschool. Evidence on the potential of these programs to reduce...

Human capital models imply that both the distribution of education and returns to education affect earnings inequality. Decomposition of these 'quantity' and 'price' components have been important in understanding changes in earnings inequality in developed and developing countries. This paper...

Students' choices in education can only be based on expected outcomes. Econometric models that infer expectations based on ex post outcomes impose a rational structure of expectations on school performance and post-graduation earnings. Direct surveys suggest much ignorance and fuzziness. We use...