We analyze the importance of the educated class for the persistence of mass consumption societies in an economy with a hierarchy of needs.Through the demand for managerial talent (which is needed to operate advanced industrial technologies), the latter generate their own demand for skills. In...

The literature on assignment mechanisms largely focuses on efficiency based on agents' preferences, though policymakers may prioritize different goals. In assigning teachers to classrooms, a school district might prioritize student learning but must also consider teacher welfare. This paper...

This paper exploits an education policy in India generated by a 2010 schooling reform to examine the effect of education on women's family planning decisions. The key element of the reform was that it required students to complete eight years of primary education (age 6-14 years). I employ an...

We provide causal evidence from a developing country context that children exposed to lead at a young age exhibit worse cognitive outcomes. We exploit variation in exposure to leadcontaminated toxic sites in Indonesia and estimate a two-way fixed effects model using variation in age at first...

This paper revisits the link between education-based marriage market sorting and income inequality. Leveraging Danish administrative data, we develop a novel categorization of "ambition types" that is based on starting wages and wage growth trajectories associated with detailed educational...

Many studies have documented that a phonics approach is an essential component in the teaching of reading for beginning readers, especially for students at risk of reading disabilities. We study whether phonics approaches, as indicated by the choice of basal readers (materials for the initial...

Millions of children worldwide remain out of school due to the high costs of reaching them and a shortage of qualified teachers. Can ICT-based instruction help close this gap and deliver the long-term benefits of traditional schooling? This paper provides causal evidence on the long-term...

This paper introduces Parameter Estimation by Raw Moments (PERM), a flexible method for evaluating a policy's impact on the parameters of an outcome distribution. Such parameters include the variance (E[Y 2 ]−E[Y] 2 ), skewness and covariance of two outcomes. PERM simplifies distributional...

We study the long-term effects of a randomized intervention targeting children's socio-emotional skills. The classroom-based intervention for primary school children has positive impacts that persist for over a decade. Treated children become more likely to complete academic high school and...

Relying on a reform that increased parental leave generosity, we estimate workplace peer effects in the use of leave, with a focus on fathers. Coworker fathers are more likely to take parental leave when exposed to a higher share of peer fathers, who are exogenously affected by the reform. This...

Background Foodborne disease is a great concern to low- and middle-income countries. To prevent illness and death, intervention strategies need to be implemented across the food safety system and should include promoting the adoption of safe food handling practices. The positive association...

We study the interaction of education in adolescence and labor force participation around retirement age and its effect on cognitive abilities for individuals in Europe. Besides a direct long-run effect of education, indirect ones may arise, specifically through labor force participation. We...

I study how transitory increases in the opportunity cost of schooling affect dropout rates and long-run outcomes. Exploiting a tax-free year in Iceland and comparing teenagers around compulsory schooling age, I document increased dropout rates and a permanent loss in educational attainment for...

The report is organized into six main sections. The first section provides an overview of the context in Edo. Section two summarized the central interventions part of EdoBESST and how they are based on the available evidence. Section three assesses the impact of interventions in terms of outputs...

This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students' literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the...

Human capital is now widely acknowledged as one of the key determinants of economic growth. Research on how human skills accumulate and evolve through time has grown rapidly in recent years. This paper surveys it with a specific focus on Europe in the period 1830s–1930s. Our contribution is...

Personality traits, preferences, and attitudes significantly influence labor market outcomes, and these non-cognitive skills are shaped by the social environment. While curriculum interventions can impact these skills, the effect of compulsory education on non-cognitive skills is less well...

We examine gender gaps in early childhood cognitive and social-behavioral skills across several Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. Our study complements previous research focused on older children by analyzing the preschool period, a critical stage for lifelong human capital...

This study examines the impact of increasing the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (from 16 to 18 years old) on the academic performance, substance use, and peer behaviours of teenagers. Using a difference-in-discontinuities design, we exploit regional MLDA reforms in Spain and PISA data to identify...

We identify the impacts of a student's timetable on their attendance, study time and academic achievement using administrative and survey data from a public UK university across a broad range of degree programmes using quasi-random assignment of students to their timetables. Timetable measures...

We study the impact of higher education (HE) on marriage incidence in China using the 2017 China Household Finance Survey. Taking advantage of the dramatic HE expansion starting in 1999, we explore the effect of education on marriage outcomes by instrumenting years of schooling using the...

The development of English-language skills, a near necessity in today’s global economy, is heavily influenced by historical national decisions about whether to subtitle or dub TV content. While prior studies of language acquisition have focused on schools, we show the overwhelming influence of...

Despite significant progress in reducing poverty, the Philippines continues to face high inequality, which stayed elevated in the early 2000s as the economy grew. Although inequality has gradually declined since 2012, it remains among the highest in Southeast Asia. This paper examines how...

Covering the full population of applicants to the Jamaican Conditional Cash Transfer Program (PATH), we explore whether receiving PATH during childhood causally affects school progression and academic performance at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. To uncover causal associations, we...

Hassan et al. (2024) describe a randomized controlled trial conducted in Bangladesh during COVID-19. This comment identifies data irregularities from the original paper's replication package and notes its connection to other published papers. Critically, Hassan et al. (2024) andWang et al....

The development of English-language skills, a near necessity in today’s global economy, is heavily influenced by historical national decisions about whether to subtitle or dub TV content. While prior studies of language acquisition have focused on schools, we show the overwhelming influence of...

This paper investigates the causal impact of free primary education (FPE) on fertility decisions among parents in sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the interplay between the policy, intra-household bargaining, and cultural norms. Using Demographic and Health Survey data and exploiting the...

The dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has created an unprecedented crisis in global education and skills development, with far-reaching consequences for access, equity, and the quality of learning worldwide. This report, commissioned by the European...

College graduates tend to marry each other. We use detailed Norwegian data to show that strong assortativity further arises by institution and field of study, especially among high earners from elite programs. Admission discontinuities reveal that enrollment itself, rather than selection,...

Yeo et al. (2023) examined the relationship between early university classes, and sleep and academic performance in a large-scale observational study. They hypothesized lower attendance, shorter sleep, and poorer academic achievements coming with earlier classes. To test their hypotheses, the...

This paper is the first to meta-analyse the literature on the causal effects of school-meal programmes on children's behavioural, health and educational outcomes in developed countries, while addressing potential publication bias and heterogeneity between studies. We create a sample of 2,821...

This paper presents sibling fixed effects estimates of the relationship between school exclusion and subsequent academic achievement from population-wide administrative data on English secondary school students. It complements a growing base of quasi-experimental and individual fixed effects...

Place shapes the educational attainment of children, yet the underlying reasons remain poorly understood. In this paper, I investigate the role of spatial differences in educational signals received by students. Using Dutch administrative data combined with high-stakes national exam scores, I...