This paper estimates ability peer effects on achievement growth in reading and math. It exploits variation in peer characteristics generated at the transition from primary to secondary school in a sample of Berlin fifth-graders. As will be discussed in detail, this variation is exogenous in...

This paper develops and applies a method for decomposing cross section variability of earnings into components that are forecastable at the time students decide to go to college (heterogeneity) and components that are unforecastable. About 60% of variability in returns to schooling is...

This paper investigates the impacts of teacher characteristics on student performance using a nationally representative and randomly assigned teacher-student sample in China. We find that having a more experienced or female homeroom teacher (HRT) with additional classroom management duties...

We exploit a recent state-level reform in Germany that granted parents the right to decide on the highest secondary school track suitable for their child, changing the purpose of the primary teacher's recommendation from mandatory to informational. Applying a disaggre-gated synthetic control...

Canada is recognized as one of the top 10 countries in secondary education according to PISA results. A particularly intriguing case in this country is the large system of highly subsidized independent schools in the province of Québec where students also perform extremely well in PISA testing....

New technologies offer many promises to improve student learning, but efforts to bring them to the classroom often fail to produce improvements to student outcomes. A notable exception to this pattern is one-to-one laptop programs. While early evaluations of these programs have been encouraging,...

Taking advantage of temporal and geographical variations in the timing of school holidays in Germany, this paper finds that school holidays cause an 19 percent (0.03 percentage points) decrease in the probability of youth suicide. This effect is constant across different types of holidays (fall,...

Franziska Bernadette Hampf prepared this study while she was working at the ifo Center for the Economics of Education. The study was completed in September 2019 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It consists of four distinct empirical...

Based on high-quality skill data from PIAAC, this paper provides evidence on the effect of schooling on labor-market relevant cognitive skills. For identification, I exploit the staggered introduction of a compulsory ninth grade in basic track schools across German states, as well as a...