This volume was prepared by Marc Piopiunik while he has been working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in June 2011 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes four self-contained empirical studies. All studies aim at...

To investigate the effects of reducing the intensity of tracking, this study exploits reforms across German states which combined the two lower secondary school tracks, sometimes additionally offering the possibility to acquire a university entrance qualification. Using a...

This paper estimates the causal effect of an additional year of parents' schooling on theirchildren's education, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms that were implemented inall West German states between 1946 and 1969. Although previous research indicatesthat these reforms had no effects on...

Theoretical work shows that grading on a curve, i.e., teachers assessing students relativeto their classmates, can negatively affect students' learning effort. However, little isknown about its empirical incidence. To overcome bias from non-random sorting andomitted variables like teachers'...

Several studies have shown that body height is positively associated with educational attainment. In this paper, we investigate the mechanisms behind this relationship using data on German pre-teen students. We show that (i) taller children are more likely to enroll in 'Gymnasium', the most...

Wie die PISA-Studien belegen, zählt in Deutschland etwa jeder fünfte Jugendliche zur Gruppe der »Risikoschüler«, die nur unzureichende Bildung erhält. In einer aktuellen Studie, die das ifo Institut im Auftrag der Bertelsmann Stiftung verfasst hat, wurden die daraus erwachsenden...

Was bringt ein höherer Bildungsabschluss unter dem Strich? Wer eine Lehre macht, nimmt während der Ausbildungszeit als Lehrling Einkommenseinbußen im Vergleich zu einer ungelernten Tätigkeit in Kauf, hofft dann in der Folge aber auf höhere Arbeitseinkommen. Noch viel mehr gilt dies für...

Many countries use centralized exit exams as a governance devise of the school system. While abundant evidence suggests positive effects of central exams on achievement tests, previous research on university-bound students shows no effects on subsequent earnings. We suggest that labor-market...