The social and academic reputation of private universities in Japan is generally far behind the national universities. We argue that heavy subsidy and the low tuition of national universities determined by the central government are both responsible for making the production of high academic...

The superstition that says women born in the year of the firehorse (Hinoeuma) are emotional and difficult to control clearly caused the fertility rate to drop sharply in Japan in 1906 and 1966. In this article, we focus on the lives of those born in the firehorse generation. We use government...

Whether universal preschool education can eliminate the achievement gap among children in the long term has been debated in the United States and elsewhere. This paper offers new evidence from the experience of massive preschool education expansion in Japan. Using prefecture-level panel data, we...

Although education voucher programs for students attending private high schools have existed in Japan for decades, to date there have been no studies that examine their effectiveness. In this study, we estimate the programs' preventative effect on dropout by using school-track level (academic or...

Can a smaller-class at school lead to a better educational outcome and more equality in achievement? We estimate the causal effects of class-size on achievement tests by using discontinuous changes in class-size under the Japanese public compulsory education system. We employ a value-added model...

type="main" <p>Can smaller classes lead to better educational outcomes and greater equality in achievement? We estimate the causal effects of class size on achievement tests by using discontinuous changes in class size under the Japanese public compulsory education system. We employ a value-added...</p>

Whether universal preschool education can eliminate the achievement gap among children in the long term has been debated in the United States and elsewhere. This paper offers new evidence from the experience of massive preschool education expansion in Japan. Using prefecture-level panel data, we...