Child care and education are important inputs in the human capital production function. The research of Nobel prize winner James Heckman shows that skills are built from the early childhood on and increase the returns of later educational inputs, in short: skill begets skill. Therefore, it is...

Während der mehrwöchigen Corona-bedingten Schulschließungen Anfang 2021 verbrachten die Schulkinder im Durchschnitt 4,3 Stunden pro Tag mit schulischen Tätigkeiten. Das zeigt eine Befragung von über 2 000 Eltern. Zwar ist das eine knappe Dreiviertelstunde mehr als während der ersten...

This paper studies the effect of longer school days - induced by voluntary all-day programs in German primary schools - on school performance. We combine data from the National Educational Panel Study covering 5348 primary school students with municipality-level information on all-day school...

Without a school degree, students can have difficulty in the labor market. To improve the lives of upper-secondary school dropouts, German states instituted a school reform that awarded an interim degree to high-track students upon completion of Grade 9. Using retrospective spell data on school...

This paper studies the effect of longer school days - induced by voluntary all-day programs in German primary schools - on school performance. We combine data from the National Educational Panel Study covering 5771 primary school students with municipality-level information on all-day school...

In spring 2020, governments around the globe shut down schools to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. We argue that low-achieving students may be particularly affected by the lack of educator support during school closures. We collect detailed time-use information on students before...

Wir haben über 2 000 Eltern befragt, wie Schulkinder die mehrwöchigen Corona-bedingten Schulschließungen Anfang 2021 verbracht haben. Im Durchschnitt haben die Schulkinder 4,3 Stunden pro Tag mit schulischen Tätigkeiten verbracht. Das ist eine knappe Dreiviertelstunde mehr als während der...

In spring 2020, governments around the globe shut down schools to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. We argue that low-achieving students may be particularly affected by the lack of educator support during school closures. We collect detailed time-use information on students before...

We study whether compulsory religious education in schools affects students’ religiosity as adults. We exploit the staggered termination of compulsory religious education across German states in models with state and cohort fixed effects. Using three different datasets, we find that abolishing...