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...

Opportunity costs are central to economic decision-making but often neglected. In a pre-registered experiment with 2,222 German university freshmen, one treatment provides salary information; another additionally frames it as the opportunity cost of delayed graduation. Only the opportunity cost...

Work-related burnout and stress-related sickness absence have become increasingly prevalent, but evidence on which workplace features shape workers’ mental health remains limited. Using population-level Swedish register data covering all lower- and upper-secondary teachers from 2006–2024, we...

Context: Vocational training has been a critical issue in China, where large percentages are regularly cited for unemployment statistics. In addition, Chinese higher vocational education and training (HVET) students are from relatively disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds and they are...

This paper estimates the causal effects of the Bologna Process reform in Italy, analyzing the impact of the introduction of the “3+2” degree structure at different stages of the educational system. We implement multiple Difference-in-Differences designs on a nationally representative dataset...

Work-related burnout and stress-related sickness absence have become increasingly prevalent, but evidence on which workplace features shape workers' mental health remains limited. Using populationlevel Swedish register data covering all lower- and upper-secondary teachers from 2006-2024, we show...

Do second chances at a high-stakes admission exam yield long-term gains? Leveraging fifteen years of Chilean administrative data and an RDD, we examine the causal effects of retaking on educational and labor market trajectories. Narrowly missing a preferred program cutoff triggers a 44% increase...

Female students are less likely to be identified as intellectually gifted than male students when the identification process follows a two-stage procedure. We posit and quantify two mechanisms that explain this gender gap. First, at any level of IQ, but especially at high levels of IQ, male...

Using surveys with Danish students transitioning to secondary education, we study mental models of how gender and parental education shape academic performance. Students hold heterogeneous beliefs about performance gaps by gender and parental background, which appear to be shaped by...

Schools are increasingly restricting cellphones worldwide amid concerns about achievement and mental health, yet causal evidence on school-level bans remains mixed. We examine cellphone restrictions in Chile before the pandemic, where teacher discretion over cellphone use generated...

University dropout is costly, making it a policy priority to identify factors that predict dropout. Using a survey experiment with incoming first-year students linked to long-run administrative outcomes, we assess which information improves dropout prediction beyond standard university records....

Online instruction holds the promise of expanding access to education for disadvantaged groups, yet it often deepens existing performance gaps. This study examines its impact on highstakes exam outcomes, focusing on mechanisms driving differential effects for minority students. We leverage rich...

We investigate the factors influencing the intended college major choices of high school students in Italy, ranking the relative importance of expected earnings, perceived ability, and major-specific tastes, that we measure directly using a Coller and Williams game. We find that major-specific...

We provide the first national descriptive analysis of the economic value of Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) degrees by examining graduates' early-career earnings, the costs of completing these programs, and the alignment between field of study and subsequent employment. Using...

Grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study examines how perceived educational support influences entrepreneurial intentions among university students in India and the People's Republic of China (PRC), through the mediating effects of entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms,...

The purpose of the study is to investigate the gap between entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial action among business administration students with the aim of understanding why many who develop entrepreneurial intentions do not ultimately take action. A quantitative methodology was...

This study explores how digital and traditional marketing tools influence higher education students' career decision-making, satisfaction, and career commitment during students' educational trajectories in Iraq's rapidly expanding university sector. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods...

Digital transformation is rapidly reshaping economies and labor markets worldwide, creating new opportunities while demanding a workforce equipped with relevant digital competencies. For Zambia, a country with one of the youngest populations in the world—this transformation presents both...

Exceptional talent accounts for a disproportionate share of innovation, yet many individuals with exceptional ability may never realize their potential. Whether expanding access to advanced training generates learning gains remains an open question. We study this using a randomized controlled...

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...

This study examines the relationship between conflict events, conflict-related fatalities, and entrepreneurial intentions in Iraq, one of the most war-affected countries over the past four decades and a context largely overlooked in the entrepreneurship literature. By combining regional-level...

Die Studie zeichnet ein konsistentes Bild der langfristigen Entwicklungen im deutschen Bildungs- und Qualifikationssystem und ordnet diese in internationale Vergleichsrahmen ein. Im Bereich der Qualifikationsstruktur bestätigen sich bekannte Muster: Deutschland bleibt durch einen besonders...

Students' university experience includes both academic and non-academic outcomes, which are shaped by the educational environment in which students interact. We refer to this environment as university climate and measure it along three dimensions: conformity to masculinity-related attitudes and...

At a time when European science and innovation policy is seeking to better support research talent in navigating increasingly diverse post-PhD careers, we suggest that skill requirements vary substantially across employment sectors. We examine PhD holders' self-perceived transferable skills to...

This paper estimates the causal effect of a large language model-based study assistant on student behavior and learning outcomes in a natural field setting with real academic stakes. I design and deploy a course-specific AI assistant (GPT-UAI) for undergraduate econometrics and evaluate it...

This study investigates the influence of ChatGPT, a generative AI tool, on the entrepreneurial intentions of final-year university students in Zambia. Grounded in the technology acceptance model (TAM) and theory of planned behaviour (TPB), the research examines how perceived ease of use (PEOU)...

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has offered new ways of teaching and learning. Businesses have also highlighted the importance of AI literacy in the workplace as AI is transforming operations and entire industries. Given the importance of obtaining AI skills and the...

This paper examines how proposed U.S. restrictions on international students would affect the nation's STEM workforce and long-run economic growth. Focusing on the most common pipeline from U.S. universities to the labor market, we show that international education is the principal mechanism by...

Financial literacy represents a fundamental competence in contemporary knowledge-based economies, particularly in the context of increasingly complex corporate financing instruments. Insufficient financial literacy may lead to suboptimal debt decisions, inefficient capital structures, and...

The pursuit of disabled students' inclusion in higher education remains a significant global concern, particularly in developing nations where systemic and institutional barriers persist. Despite progressive legislative and policy frameworks promoting inclusive education, Kenyan and Pakistani...

Increased competition in the higher education market is a key reason for higher education institutions (HEIs) to adopt marketing strategies to remain competitive. Branding is one of the strategies frequently used in this context. This study examines changes in university brand value perception...

Purpose: This study investigates how inclusive teaching practices and institutional support influence entrepreneurial intentions among disadvantaged students in technical vocational education and training (TVET), with persistence of effort as a mediating variable. Although persistence of effort...

The migration activity of students as one of the important factors of changes in the intellectual potential and economic development of countries requires a constant search for the causes and pull factors. To this end, our study analyses the impact of higher education quality factors. For this...

Introduction: Ethical climate theory traditionally conceptualizes organizational ethics as a set of distinct normative dimensions. However, recent evidence suggests that ethical perceptions may converge into a unified climate in culturally cohesive and institutionally regulated contexts. This...

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...

In many countries, subsidies towards higher education and financial aid to students from poorer backgrounds have reduced socio-economic status (SES) gaps in undergraduate study. The increasing importance of graduate studies that are typically more expensive may, however, provide a new avenue for...

Financial student aid improves educational outcomes and reduces social inequality, yet many eligible students do not take it up. To examine whether correcting misperceptions increases take-up, I conducted an RCT with 6,225 university students across Germany who were not receiving aid. I find...