This paper provides evidence on the sources of differences in inequality in educational scores and their evolution over time in four European countries. Using Programme for International Student Assessment data from the 2000 and the 2006 waves, the paper shows that inequality decreased in Germany and Spain (two "decentralised" schooling…

Using data from the survey of the Ministry of Education, Nepal-2005 for School Leaving Certificate Exam, this paper analyzes public and private school performance in Nepal. The ordinary least square estimates suggest that private school students perform better than public school students. However, the problem of self-selection bias arises, as…

According to recent literature, this paper highlights the relevance of spatial mobility as an explanatory factor of the individual risk of job-education mismatch. To investigate this causal link, we use individual information about daily home-to-work commuting time and choices to relocate in a different local area to get a job. Our model takes…

This paper contributes to the literature by separately analysing the course enrolment and completion effects of vocational education and training (VET) as well as higher education. Moreover, we investigate the persistence of these wage effects over time while controlling for two potential selection biases. We take advantage of the Longitudinal…

Like active labour market programmes, grade repetition could generate two types of effects: better/worse outcomes due to programme participation (i.e. the fact that pupils repeat a particular grade). This is what the existing literature on grade repetition has focused on. Another potential outcome is the "threat" effect of grade…

Private tutoring has become popular throughout the world. However, evidence for the effect of private tutoring on students' academic outcome is inconclusive; therefore, this paper presents an alternative framework: a nonparametric bounds method. The present examination uses, for the first time, a large representative data-set in a European…

In this paper, the 2001 Australian Census is used to estimate predicted net benefits of education at a small geographic level. These are then linked to youth in the areas to test the associations with high school participation. This is done separately for Indigenous youth, a population sub-group with historically low levels of education…

The national Norwegian school reform of 1994, which gave students statutory rights to at least 3 years of upper secondary education, had a significant impact on educational attainment among immigrant youth. In particular, we find that the immigrant transition rate from compulsory schooling to completion of the first year of upper secondary…

The paper investigates if the provision of financial incentives has an impact on the performance of students in educational tests. The analysis is based on data from an experiment with high school students who answered multiple-choice items from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). As in TIMSS, the setup did not…

Education policy analysts and professional educators have called for more and better professional learning opportunities for in-service teachers, and for at least 30 years economists called for more content training for high school economics teachers. Using new data from all Georgia high school economics students, we assess the impact of…

This paper documents the experience of incentive-based reforms in the secondary Islamic/madrasa education sector in Bangladesh within the context of the broader debate over modernization of religious school systems in South Asia. Key features of the reform are changes of the curriculum and policy regarding admission of female students. In return…

We study a set of programs implemented in Philadelphia high schools that focus on boosting high school graduation, and especially college attendance, using data from the Philadelphia Educational Longitudinal Study (PELS). We examine the effects of these programs on a set of schooling-related outcomes during and after high school. The PELS data-set…

This study proposes a model to estimate the demand for higher education. The present model is characterized by an ability-based distribution of high school graduates who choose between entering the labor market and beginning post-secondary schooling. In addition to estimating the demand for higher education, this model also derives a test of the…

This paper examines the relationship between a firm's training motives and the quality of apprenticeship training. Data on training quality and training motives are obtained by interviewing former apprentices. The paper employs a novel measure for training quality based on subjective survey data on the firm's training effort. It is found that…

In this paper we measure the impacts of tougher graduation requirements on course-taking patterns, college attendance and completion, and post-high school labor market outcomes for vocational concentrators and non-concentrators. Our main goal was to assess whether vocational education students were specifically affected (positively or negatively)…