This paper estimates the returns to education in Arkansas-one of the last states to extend compulsory schooling-using ACS 2023 data and the 1987 Compulsory Schooling Law (CSL) reform as an instrument. OLS estimates imply returns of 9.5-10.4 percent per year of schooling. The CSL reform increased...

International and Irish studies have indicated negative trends in the mental health and wellbeing of young people over recent years. Indeed, the most recent wave of the Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children study shows that Ireland ranked 24 out of 36 countries on overall adolescent mental...

We estimate monetary wage returns to academic-track education, Germany’s elite secondary school type granting university entrance. Because academic-track attendance and subsequent university education are institutionally linked, we disentangle their contributions using a causal mediation...

This paper studies how college major choices shape earnings and fertility outcomes. Using administrative data that link students' preferences, random assignment to majors, and post-college outcomes, we estimate the causal pecuniary and nonpecuniary returns to different fields of study. We...

How do students' earnings expectations differ by being the first in their family to attend university (FiF) and how do they affect field of study choice? We leverage unique survey and administrative data to document sizable gaps in expected earnings between FiF and non-FiF students. Our data can...

This paper examines the private returns to education in the context of heterogeneous labour markets, using Peru as a case study. While education is widely considered a key driver of individual earnings and economic growth, its actual returns may be constrained by structural features of labour...

Given data on a scalar random variable 𝑌, a prediction set for 𝑌 with miscoverage level 𝛼 is a set of values for 𝑌 that contains a randomly drawn 𝑌 with probability 1 - 𝛼, where 𝛼 ∈ (0, 1). Among all prediction sets that satisfy this coverage property, the oracle...

We analyze the initial job-market matching of new US college graduates with a large-scale audit study conducted during 2016 and 2017, in which 36,880 résumés of college seniors were submitted to online job postings for business-related positions. We simulate the experience of US college...

This study examines the impact of economic conditions at college entry on post-graduation labor market outcomes, focusing on behavioral responses related to job market preparation and career advancement. Exploiting variation in regional unemployment rates within college entry cohorts, we utilize...

This paper analyzes the effects of the COVID-19 recession on the rate of return to schooling for twenty industries in Pennsylvania. Using data from the American Community Survey 2011-2021, we find the rate of return to schooling declined by 0.3 percentage points during COVID years from its...

This paper studies how college major choices shape earnings and fertility outcomes. Using administrative data that link students’ preferences, random assignment to majors, and post-college outcomes, the researchers estimate the causal pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns to different fields of...

We develop a general-equilibrium OLG model of human capital to study the dynamics of the U.S. college premium and lifetime wage profiles between 1940 and 2020. The model features endogenous education and on-the-job training, along with exogenous aggregate (skill-neutral and skill-biased) shocks...

This paper provides the first experimental evidence on the long-term effects of work-study programs, leveraging a randomized lottery design from a national program in Uruguay. Participation leads to a persistent 11 percent increase in formal labor earnings seven years after the program, driven...

In Poland, between 2005 and 2019, the share of the employed with tertiary education among men increased by about 10 percentage points and among women by about 18 percentage points. We study the impact of this change on relative income poverty and income inequality using a microsimulation...

We study the wage effects of an expansion of for-profit preschools in Sweden, which followed after a reform in 2006 removed municipalities' right to veto private entry. The expansion decreased preschool employers' monopsony power by increasing the number of alternative employers. We use a...

Much of the data collected in education is effectively thrown away. Students answer individual test questions, but administrators and researchers only see aggregate performance. All the item-level data are lost. Ex ante it is not clear this destroys much useful information, since the aggregate...

We evaluate the short- and long-run effects of a large conditional cash transfer program that paid students to remain in full-time education beyond the compulsory school-leaving age. The Education Maintenance Allowance paid teenagers from low-income families in the United Kingdom up to £30 per...

The occurrence of unexpected shocks, such as natural disasters, that destroy physical capital could affect the perception of returns to investment in human capital. This paper tests this hypothesis using a survey conducted in Mozambique while Cyclone Idai hit the country in March 2019. A...

Tutoring programs for low-performing students, delivered in-person or online, effectively enhance school performance, yet their medium- and longer-term impacts on labor market outcomes remain less understood. To address this gap, we conduct a randomized controlled trial with 839 secondary school...

This study investigated the effects of bullying victimization on cognitive, school engagement, and friendship outcomes using panel data collected from elementary school students in a Japanese city. Employing a value-added model that controls for prior outcomes, our findings revealed that...

This paper estimates labour-market returns to formal and informal human capital in Italy using data from the first cycle of PIAAC. We distinguish formal inputs (years of schooling) from directly assessed skills (literacy and numeracy) which we interpret as distinct forms of human capital that...

Since the 1990s, the Czech Republic has witnessed a significant increase in educational attainment, leading to a rise in educational mismatch. This study investigates the prevalence of vertical and horizontal educational mismatch using data from surveys conducted in 2011 and 2022 on Czech prime...

We estimate the causal effect of schooling on log earnings using instrumental variables (IV), addressing the endogeneity of schooling by using father's education as an instrument. The IV estimate implies a return of approximately 7.7 percent per additional year of schooling. First-stage and...

We use data from a Norwegian field experiment where young students were taught mathematics in small, homogenous groups to investigate how treatment effects varied across middle-achieving students dependent on their rank order and their tutors’ instructional practices. We find that individuals...

Substantial and persistent differences in learning outcomes between schools largely caused by school segregation is a recurrent issue in many countries and is seen as a threat against equality of opportunity. Compensatory resource allocation policies are sometimes used to mitigate this problem,...

The criminal justice system primarily arrests and incarcerates people without high school diplomas. We estimate the causal effect of a high school diploma on criminal justice system contact for a set of people who previously exited high school but then attended The Excel Center (TEC), a network...

We revisit the role of human capital in cross-country income differences. We develop a general equilibrium model where workers of different skill groups sort into occupations by comparative advantage. Wages and employment depend on workers' skill quality, occupation-specific country-embedded...

Inequality in college attendance is a key driver of intergenerational mobility. We focus upstream to examine how elite high-schools - specifically UK private (feepaying) schools - shape university destinations across the achievement distribution. Using linked-administrative data, we show the...