The German educational system is characterized by pronounced educational disparities based on the parental socioeconomic status. Despite the rather strong stratification of the secondary school sys-tem and social selection into obtaining the university entrance qualification, the transition to...

The German education system is characterized by strong social inequalities in university access. These may be reduced by offering individual counseling sessions to students in their final two years of high school. The study "Zukunftsund Berufspläne nach dem Abitur" (ZuBAb)1 examines how such...

This paper analyses the determinants of participation in higher education in West Germany. In particular, the role of social origin as well as of expectations regarding the labour market outcome of a higher education degree and of public educational policy are examined. The estimations are based...

Based on local policy variation, this paper estimates the causal effect of additional career assistance on educational outcomes for students in Lower Track Secondary Schools in Germany. We find mostly insignificant effects of the treatment on average outcomes, which mask quite heterogeneous...

The US skill premium and college enrollment have increased substantially over the past few decades. In addition, while low-wage earners worked more than highwage earners in 1970, the opposite was true in 2000. We show that a parsimonious neoclassical model featuring skill-biased technical...

An increase over time in the proportion of young people obtaining a degree is likely to impact on the relative ability compositions (i) of graduates and non-graduates and (ii) across graduates with different classes of degree award. In a signalling framework, we examine the implications of this...