In this paper, we study the effect of the timing of puberty on educational achievement and examine to what extent the gender differences in the timing of puberty can explain gender differences in achievement. We use British cohort data that combine information on pubertal development with test...

Upon assuming power for the first time in 1935, the Norwegian Labour Party delivered on its promise for a major schooling reform. The reform raised minimum instruction time in less developed rural areas and boosted the resources available to rural schools, reducing class size and increasing...

This paper documents trends in social mobility in Norway starting from fathers born at the turn of the 20th century and ending with sons born in the 1970s. We measure social mobility with intergenerational income elasticities, associations between fathers' and sons' income percentiles, and...

This paper studies the cross-border health and productivity effects of alcohol taxes. We estimate the effect of a large cut in the Finnish alcohol tax on mortality, alcohol related illnesses and work absenteeism in Sweden. This tax cut led to large differences in the prices of alcoholic...

This paper surveys the trends in gender gaps in education, their causes and potential policy implications. I show that female educational attainment has surpassed, or is about to surpass, male educational attainment in most industrialized countries. These gaps reflect male overrepresentation...

We evaluate the effects of aging on productivity using piece-rate earnings as a proxy for worker output. Our data contain the population of Finnish blue collar workers in 61 different industries during 1990-2002. A unique feature of the data is that we can observe the exact hours worked on piece...

This paper, using panel data on Finnish metalworkers for the years 1990-2000, explores gender differences in the allocation of workers across jobs of different complexity. The data provide measures for the complexity of the workers' tasks and for the individual productivity of each worker. The...

This paper examines the earnings effects of performance pay using linked employee-employer panel data from Finland's metal industry for 1990-2000. The authors estimate the effects of performance pay contracts in the presence of individual and firm unobserved heterogeneity as well as in tasks of...

This paper estimates the effect of a major education reform on the intergenerational income mobility in Finland. The Finnish comprehensive school reform of 1972-1977 replaced the old two-track school system with a uniform nine-year comprehensive school and significantly reduced the degree of...

This paper, using panel data on Finnish metalworkers for the years 1990–2000, explores gender differences in the allocation of workers across jobs of different complexity. The data provide measures for the complexity of the workers' tasks and for the individual productivity of each...