This paper develops a comprehensive framework for the quantitative analysis of the private and fiscal returns to schooling and of the effect of public policies on private incentives to invest in education. This framework is applied to 14 member states of the European Union. For each of these...

In this paper, the relationship between the school attendance decision and economic incentives is investigated using data from Zambia. A logit model for school attendance is estimated, and it is found that school attendance is not particularly sensitive to changes in costs, quality, or poverty....

This paper reports about a randomized field experiment in which first year economics and business students at the University of Amsterdam could earn financial rewards for passing all first year requirements before the start of their second academic year. Participants were assigned to a high...

We introduce grading into games of status. Each player chooses effort, pro­ducing a stochastic output or score. Utilities depend on the ranking of all the scores. By clustering scores into grades, the ranking is coarsened, and the incen­tives to work are changed.We apply games of status to...

This paper presents the result of a field experiment on the effectiveness of non-monetary incentives on pupils' achievement on a mathematical multiple choice test. Our sample consists of 2113 pupils of deprived and high-achieving secondary schools in Germany. Based on a pre-study, we compare the...

We show that if students care primarily about their status (relative rank) in class, they are best motivated to work not by revealing their exact numerical exam scores (100, 99, ..., 1), but instead by clumping them in broad categories (A, B, C). If their abilities are disparate, the optimal...

This paper studies responses to high-stakes incentives arising from early ability tracking. We use three complementary research designs exploiting differences in school track admission rules at the end of primary school in Germany's early ability tracking system. Our results show that the need...

This paper studies responses to high-stakes incentives arising from early ability tracking. We use three complementary research designs exploiting differences in school track admission rules at the end of primary school in Germany's early ability tracking system. Our results show that the need...

This paper studies responses to high-stakes incentives arising from early ability tracking. We use three complementary research designs exploiting differences in school track admission rules at the end of primary school in Germany's early ability tracking system. Our results show that the need...