By the 2008/09 school year the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) abolished binding school catchment … areas (SCAs) in all municipalities. The reform has been controversial and it was feared that school choice would increase …

education, assuming that the institutional setup of the school system remains unchanged …

Children starting school at older ages consistently exhibit better educational outcomes. In this paper, we underscore … child development as a mechanism driving this effect. We study the causal effect of school starting age on a child …'s probability of developing special educational needs in early grades. We find that starting school at a relatively older age …

We exploit variation stemming from school consolidations in Denmark from 2010-2011 to analyze the impact on student … achievement as measured by test scores. For each student we observe enrollment and test scores one year prior to school … consolidation and up to four years after. We find that school consolidation has adverse effects on achievement in the short run and …

expansion of school attainment has not guaranteed improved economic conditions. This paper reviews the role of education in … evidence that the cognitive skills of the population - rather than mere school attainment - are powerfully related to … reveal much larger skill deficits in developing countries than generally derived from just school enrollment and attainment …