Stephen Machin and Tuomas Pekkarinen explore the phenomenon of 'higher variance' in boys' educational performance relative to girls.

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 the school system on mathematical, verbal, and logical reasoning skills using data from the Finnish comprehensive school reform that abolished the two-track school system. We use a difference-in-differences approach that exploits the gradual implementation across the...

We examine the relationship between technological complexity and wage inequality, using an efficiency wage model that adopts Kremer's O-ring production function. The model has two main implications: (i) when the production process becomes more complex, within-task wage differences increase...

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...