Little is known about the response behavior of parents whose children are exposed to an early-life shock. In this paper we interpret the prenatal exposure of the Austrian 1986 cohort to radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident as a negative human capital shock and examine their parents'...

It has been argued that vocational education facilitates the school-to-work transition but reduces later adaptability to changing environments. Using the recent international PIAAC data, we confirm such a trade-off over the life-cycle in a difference-in-differences model that compares employment...

This study presents a new view on the association between education and longevity. In contrast to the earlier literature, which focused on inefficient health behavior of the less educated, we investigate the extent to which the education gradient can be explained by fully rational and efficient...

This paper argues that school grades cannot be interpreted solely as a reward for a given school performance, since they also reflect teachers' ratings of pupils. Grades therefore contain valuable information about pupils' own - usually unknown - ability. The incorporated assessment in grade...

The quantity and quality of educational investment matter for labor market outcomes such as earnings and employment. Yet, not everyone knows this, and navigating the education system can be extremely complex both for students and their parents. A growing economic literature has begun to test...

Across academic sub-fields such as labor, education, and behavioral economics, the measurement and interpretation of non-cognitive skills varies widely. As a result, it is difficult to compare results on the importance of non-cognitive skills across literatures. Drawing from these literatures,...

It has been argued that vocational education facilitates the school-to-work transition but reduces later adaptability to changing environments. Using the recent international PIAAC data, we confirm such a trade-off over the life-cycle in a difference-in-differences model that compares employment...

This study investigates the relationship between social trust and intelligence. The extreme bound analysis of Levine and Renelt is employed to directly assess the strength of the nexus. The findings confirm the positive and robust nexus between social trust and intelligence. We have contributed...

Die Bildungsreformen der sechziger Jahre sollten das Bildungsniveau der Westdeutschen anheben. Die Analyse der Daten des Mikrozensus weist darauf hin, dass die durch die Bildungsreformen intendierte Bildungsexpansion schon vor 1960 begonnen hat. Mit dem Conditional Mean Independence Ansatz...

Self-productivity is a crucial feature in the process of skill formation. It means that skills and health acquired at one stage in the life cycle enhance skills and health formation at later stages. This paper presents an empirical investigation of self-productivity in early childhood in...