Measuring non-cognitive skills in evaluations of education policy interventions is an increasingly important task. At the same time, choosing the adequate measures is difficult. Contrary to cognitive development, there is a shortage of reliable and valid measures of personality and behavioral...

The National Educational Integration Network (OOIH) launched a program in 2003 that focused on the integrated education of primary school children (grades 1 through 8) in 45 schools in Hungary. The goal of the program was to compensate for the educational disadvantages of children from poor...

Measuring non-cognitive skills in evaluations of education policy interventions is an increasingly important task. At the same time, choosing the adequate measures is difficult. Contrary to cognitive development, there is a shortage of reliable and valid measures of personality and behavioral...

Hungary has been a front-runner in the transition to capitalism. It has also experienced exceptionally radical changes in employment and relative wages. One main feature of these changes is an enormous increase in the returns to skill. This paper argues that it is instructive to divide the...

The paper analyzes the changes in the relative labor market position of the public sector employees, using both macro-level employment statistics and large wage surveys. While competitive employment decreased by more than 30 per cent during the transition, number of public employees have not...

Regional unemployment and non-participation rates are higher, more disperse, and more stable in Europe than in the U.S. This paper helps understand what may cause this phenomenon. Specifically, it looks at the role of migration in regional differences. I analyze the adjustment mechanisms of...

This paper presents new evidence on the patterns of price and wage adjustment inEuropean firms and on the extent of nominal rigidities. It uses a unique dataset collectedthrough a firm-level survey conducted in a broad range of countries and covering varioussectors. Several conclusions are drawn...

This study examines social differences in time use and expenditures and their evolution over time among families with young children. The analysis is based on the KSH Time Use and Household Budget Surveys. Our results show that families with higher educational attainment spend more on items and...

This paper proposes a simple method for estimating the lock-in effects of switching costs from firm-level data. We compare the behavior of already contracted consumers to the behavior of new consumers as the latter can serve as contrafactual to the former. In panel regressions on firms' incoming...

The Roma or "Gypsies" are Europe's largest and poorest ethnic minority. Nearly 80 per cent of them live in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The Roma - Non-Roma educational gap, always substantial but slowly closing in the communist years, widened again after the...