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on Education |
| By: | Langen, Henrika (BIBB); Laine, Liisa (University of Missouri) |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of a teacher strike on students still in compulsory school and about to choose their secondary education track. Using administrative data and a difference-in-differences approach, we estimate the effect of a regional strike in Finland on educational attainment and long-term labor market outcomes. On average, we find no statistically significant effect on attainment across exposed students. However, students from high-income households were more likely to pursue general education rather than vocational degrees, while those from low-income households shifted away from general education. Despite these differences, both groups experienced modest gains in income and employment later in life. |
| Keywords: | teacher strike, administrative data, effect heterogeneity, difference-in-differences, doubly robust estimation |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J24 C23 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17937 |
| By: | Patrinos, Harry Anthony (University of Arkansas, Fayetteville); Psacharopoulos, George (Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | The evidence underscores the need to shift attention from school attainment to actual learning. While the average global return to an additional year of schooling is about 10 percent, a one standard deviation increase in test scores raises earnings by 15 percent. Studies show that including direct measures of skills reduces the estimated return to schooling, revealing the stronger role of quality. These findings suggest that education policy should prioritize learning outcomes, not just years in school, to more accurately reflect the economic value of education. |
| Keywords: | cognitive skills, returns to education, earnings |
| JEL: | I21 I26 J24 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17939 |
| By: | Rosa Cheesman; Nicolai T. Borgen; Astrid M. J. Sandsør; Paul Hufe; Astrid Marie Jorde Sandsør |
| Abstract: | 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 endowments and school quality. We use MoBa’s genetic data to compute polygenic indices for educational attainment (PGIEA). Importantly, MoBa includes information on the genetic endowments of father-mother-child trios, allowing us to identify causal genetic effects using within-family variation. We calculate school value-added measures from Norwegian register data, allowing us to causally estimate school quality effects. Leveraging the advantages of both data sources, we provide the first causally identified study of gene-environment interactions in the school context. We find evidence for substitutability of PGIEA and school quality in reading but not numeracy: a 1 SD increase of school quality decreases the impact of the PGIEA on reading test scores by 6%. The substitutability arises through gains of students at the lower end of the PGIEA distribution. This shows that investments in school quality may help students to overcome their draw in the genetic lottery. |
| Keywords: | education, gene-environment interaction, polygenic index, school value-added |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11883 |
| By: | Antonio Di Paolo (Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.); Khalifany Ash Shidiqi (Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, Indonesia.) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyse the effect of educational attainments on interethnic marriages in Indonesia, a multi-ethnic emerging country. The empirical analysis is based on data from the Java Island obtained from the 2014 wave of the Indonesian Family Life Survey, combined with administrative data about the location and year of establishment of Higher Education Institutions (HEI). To estimate causal effects, we exploit variation in exposure to HEI by birth year and district of residence in an IV/TSLS framework. Specifically, we employ as instrument for education the number of HEI located in a radius of 10 kilometres from the centroid of the district of residence at age 18. The analysis is carried out at the individual level, with separate estimations for males and females. The results indicate that years of schooling, college attendance and completion positively affect the likelihood of exogamy, i.e. having a partner from a different ethnicity. The estimated coefficients are somewhat larger for females than for males, and all the robustness checks provide stable results, supporting their causal interpretation. The effect of schooling does not appear to be heterogeneous depending on parental education, and mixed parental ethnicity. However, it is lower for individuals with Javanese ethnicity compared to those belonging to other ethnic groups. We also analyse potential mechanisms, highlighting that migration/residential location and changes in social norms could be significant channels underlying the causal chain between higher education expansion, educational attainments, and interethnic marriages. Overall, the results reported in this paper point out that the increase in educational attainments induced by the expansion of higher education could contribute to the reduction of ethnic segregation. |
| Keywords: | Education; interethnic marriages; higher education expansion; Indonesia. JEL classification: I21, I23, J12. |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:202409 |