We estimate the relationship between students’ educational achievement and the availability and use of computers at home and at school in the international student-level PISA database. Bivariate analyses show a positive correlation between student achievement and the availability of computers...

We use the PISA student-level achievement database to estimate international education production functions. Student characteristics, family backgrounds, home inputs, resources, teachers and institutions are all significantly related to math, science and reading achievement. Our models account...

This paper analyses the influence of the capital market on the labour market. Especially the impact of start-up financing on the structure of unemployment is of interest. We use a cross-country panel data analysis to examine how venture capital investment influences disaggre-gate unemployment....

This paper uses extensive student-level micro databases of three international student achievement tests to estimate heterogeneity in the effect of external exit exams on student performance along three dimensions. First, quantile regressions show that the effect tends to increase with student...

We examine whether the sorting of differently achieving students into differently sized classes results in a regressive or compensatory pattern of class sizes for a sample of national school systems. Sorting effects are identified by subtracting the causal effect of class size on performance...

Trade and growth theories predict a mutual causation of innovation and exports. We test empirically whether innovation causes exports using a uniquely rich German micro dataset. Our instrumental-variable strategy identifies variation in innovative activity that is caused by specific impulses and...

This paper estimates the effects of family-background characteristics on student performance in the US and 17 Western European school systems. Family background has strong effects both in Europe and the United States, remarkably similar in size. France and Flemish Belgium achieve the most...

Economic development in Latin America has trailed most other world regions over the past four decades despite its relatively high initial development and school attainment levels. This puzzle can be resolved by considering the actual learning as expressed in tests of cognitive skills, on which...

Most studies find little to no effect of classroom computers on student achievement. We suggest that this null effect may combine positive effects of computer uses without equivalently effective alternative traditional teaching practices and negative effects of uses that substitute more...

In an economic theory of suicide, we model social cohesion of the religious community and religious beliefs about afterlife as two mechanisms by which Protestantism increases suicide propensity. We build a unique micro-regional dataset of 452 Prussian counties in 1816-21 and 1869-71, when...