Pop-Eleches and Urquiola (2013) apply a regression discontinuity to the Romanian secondary school system, and notably find that (a) students who go to a better school get higher scores on an exam used for university admission, (b) parents of students who get into a better school help their kids...

Education policy holds the promise of breaking the strong ties between family background and socio-economic position by providing publicly accessible education for children of all backgrounds. However, the education system may also perpetuate social inequalities if well-off families are able to...

Sarah Gust führte diese Studie während ihrer Tätigkeit am ifo Institut durch. Die Studie wurde im September 2024 abgeschlossen und als Dissertation an der Volkswirtschaftlichen Fakultät der LMU München angenommen. Sie besteht aus drei eigenständigen empirischen Essays, die...

Education levels in Burkina Faso, especially among women, remain low despite efforts made by government authorities and development partners to implement priority area 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This situation presents difficulties for women in terms of their being...

We investigate whether better schools can compensate for the effects of children's genetic differences. To this end, we combine data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) with Norwegian register data to estimate the interaction between genetic endowments and school...

The upcoming Spending Review will involve some very difficult decisions on public service spending, with virtually no headroom against the government's fiscal rules. The government has set out plans for overall departmental spending to grow by about 1.2% per year in real terms between 2025-26...

A human capital model is used to examine students' willingness to borrow to pay for a college degree. We hypothesize direct costs of education and education goals to be positively associated and current income and alternative financial support to be negatively associated with willingness to...

Educational outcomes in Belgium are comparable to peers but achieved at a higher cost. The public wage bill for education is higher than in peers, reflecting smaller student-to-teacher ratios and less teaching time. Yet, Belgium experiences teacher shortages. Reforms should aim at increasing the...

We identify the impacts of a student's timetable on their attendance, study time and academic achievement using administrative and survey data from a public UK university across a broad range of degree programmes using quasi-random assignment of students to their timetables. Timetable measures...

In this paper, we investigate whether better schools can compensate for the effects of children’s genetic differences. To this end, we combine data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) with Norwegian register data to estimate the interaction between genetic...

Little attention has been paid to supply- and demand-side factors explaining regional variation in youth overeducation. These factors might be drivers of a crowding out effect, where workers at a given level of education are expelled from their "matched" labour market positions by workers with a...

Can public university honors programs deliver the benefits of selective undergraduate education within otherwise nonselective institutions? We evaluate the impact of admission to the Honors College at Oregon State University, a large nonselective public university. Admission to the Honors...

We design a commitment contract for college students, "Study More Tomorrow," and conduct a randomized control trial testing a model of its demand. The contract commits students to attend peer tutoring if their midterm grade falls below a prespecified threshold. The contract carries a financial...

We investigate whether increasing the education quality causes increases in economic growth allowing poorer countries to catch up. To this end, we extend Nelson-Phelps's classic paper by introducing differences in education quality (proxied by students' performance on the Program for...

Can public university honors programs deliver the benefits of selective undergraduate edu- cation within otherwise nonselective institutions? We evaluate the impact of admission to the Honors College at Oregon State University, a large nonselective public university. Admission to the Honors...

We design a commitment contract for college students, "Study More Tomorrow," and conduct a randomized control trial testing a model of its demand. The contract commits students to attend peer tutoring if their midterm grade falls below a prespecified threshold. The contract carries a financial...

Pop-Eleches and Urquiola (2013) apply a regression discontinuity to the Romanian secondary school system, and notably find that (a) students who go to a better school get higher scores on an exam used for university admission, (b) parents of students who get into a better school help their kids...

The system-level indicators on higher education explore two important aspects linked to the social dimension in higher education in Europe. On one hand, they examine tackling gender equity issues in higher education, and on the other, admission policies in the context of lifelong learning. The...

This factsheet provides an overview of the European Universities alliance, including on its partners, focus areas, vision and activities undertaken. It relates to the pioneering new learning opportunities across borders developed by the alliance, the innovative European inter-university campus...

This factsheet provides an overview of the European Universities alliance, including on its partners, focus areas, vision and activities undertaken. It relates to the pioneering new learning opportunities across borders developed by the alliance, the innovative European inter-university campus...

In this report, we analyse the financial health and challenges facing colleges in England. This covers all further education colleges, including sixth form colleges. There are currently 218 colleges in England, which offer a wide range of academic and vocational programmes to both young people...

This study examines the effect of extended education on school achievement and inequality in Dutch primary schools. We apply a panel event study design using rich longitudinal data on the use of extended education and school achievement in grades 1 through 6, to estimate the causal effect of...

The affordability of public higher education and, by extension, public higher education funding, is an important concern to prospective students and their parents as well as to policymakers. Our study examines the allocation of constant dollar per-student state appropriations across four-year or...

In 2022, the Ministries of education of the European Union adopted a Council Recommendation on Pathways to School Success, supported by a handbook. The Recommendation aims to promote better educational outcomes for all learners, by lifting the performance of basic skills, reducing early leaving...

In 2022, the Ministries of education of the European Union adopted a Council Recommendation on Pathways to School Success, supported by a handbook. The Recommendation aims to promote better educational outcomes for all learners, by lifting the performance of basic skills, reducing early leaving...

The affordability of public higher education and, by extension, public higher education funding, is an important concern to prospective students and their parents as well as to policymakers. Our study examines the allocation of constant dollar per-student state appropriations across four-year or...

Katharina Wedel prepared this study while she was working at the Center for the Economics of Education at the ifo Institute. The study was completed in September 2023 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at LMU Munich. It consists of four distinct empirical essays that...