In the UK, education is the third largest area of government spending (of which school spending has the largest share). Since 2000, school expenditure has increased by about 40 per cent in real terms for both primary and secondary schools (see Figure 1). The question as to whether such investment is worthwhile is of central importance. The…

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effects of the Swedish compulsory school reform on intergenerational mobility, and to assess the extent to which the effect operates through assortative mating. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying intergenerational mobility is important for the design of educational policies. In…

When studying different types of returns to education, educational reforms are commonly used in the economics literature as a source of exogenous variation in education. The Swedish compulsory school reform is one example; the reform extended compulsory education throughout the country, in different municipalities at different points in time. Such…