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on Education |
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Issue of 2026–09–14
sixteen papers chosen by João Carlos Correia Leitão, Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Canaan, Serena (Simon Fraser University); Fischer, Stefanie (Monash University); Mouganie, Pierre (Simon Fraser University); Schnorr, Geoffrey (U.S. Military Academy at West Point) |
| Abstract: | Institutional rules that appear neutral can produce unequal outcomes when applied to students who differ in how they respond to them. We study this in the context of academic probation, a policy used by nearly every U.S. college to warn students whose grades fall below a fixed threshold that continued enrollment is conditional on improvement. To do so, we draw on student records from a large California public university, linked to state administrative earnings data. We identify the causal effects of probation using a regression discontinuity design comparing students who narrowly scored above the cutoff to those who just missed it. We find that probation raises dropout, lowers degree completion, and reduces earnings at ages 24 to 31 among low-income students, while high-income students are largely unaffected. We then contrast the standard policy with an alternative, at the same institution, which incorporates a coaching program. We find that the alternative policy eliminates these effects and improves academic performance. Taken together, these results suggest that the design of institutional policies is critical for closing socioeconomic gaps in degree completion. |
| Keywords: | academic probation, higher education, socioeconomic disparities, regression discontinuity, coaching program |
| JEL: | I23 I24 I28 J24 C21 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18896 |
| By: | Joshua Goodman; Samuel Nitkin |
| Abstract: | Private tutoring chains like Kumon and Sylvan have expanded rapidly in recent decades. Combining data on business locations, household spending, and district test scores, we study who uses these centers and how they affect academic skills. Nearly half of tutoring users are from the top income decile, with Asian and White households five and two times as likely to purchase tutoring as Black and Hispanic households. A staggered differences-in-differences design shows the opening of a district's first chain center raises district-wide math and reading scores by 0.02-0.03 standard deviations, at a much lower cost than public spending typically producing similar gains. Math effects are largest for White and Asian students, so that center entry widens racial achievement gaps, though less so in more racially integrated districts. These private investments help their users, deepen educational inequality, and shape outcomes by which state accountability systems and families judge schools. |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I24 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35671 |
| By: | Ferreira, João R.; Martins, Pedro S. |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the impact of vocational education and training (VET) in a setting with high dropout rates and socio-economic inequality in educational attainment. We estimate that the introduction of VET courses across public upper secondary schools in Portugal was associated with a 2.7 percentage points increase in on-time graduation rates (6% of the baseline rate). Our identification strategy exploits the staggered introduction of the VET track, which created quasi-experimental variation in the local availability of VET across school districts and cohorts. Drawing on a comprehensive student-school matched panel spanning 2006-2017, we implement an event-study design and three complementary IV strategies. We find substantial positive effects of VET take-up on graduation rates, especially among previously low-achieving and socio-economically disadvantaged students. |
| Keywords: | Vocational education, Educational attainment, Educational inequality, Matched studentschool data, Portugal |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I28 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1810 |
| By: | Dániel Horn (Corvinus University of Budapest; ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies); Rita Pető (ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies) |
| Abstract: | Maternal job loss may deepen educational inequality by disrupting children’s schooling at critical transition points. Using linked Hungarian administrative and educational data, we compare children whose mothers experience sustained non-employment after grade 6 with those whose mothers experience it only after grade 10. Maternal job loss increases school dropout by 4.3 percentage points, relative to a mean of 6.7 percent. Its average effect on maturity-track enrollment is largely associated with increased dropout rather than track reallocation among enrolled students. The larger adverse effects observed in the top baseline maternal earnings tertile provide suggestive support for a financial mechanism, while the smaller maturity-track effects among children of more-educated mothers are consistent with a compensatory role for parental resources. |
| Keywords: | maternal job loss; school dropout; secondary-school track choice; parental education; intergenerational mobility; linked administrative data; difference-in-differences; Hungary |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J13 J62 J64 C21 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2610 |
| By: | Michela Carlana; Francesca Miserocchi; Eleonora Patacchini |
| Abstract: | Professionals routinely make consequential decisions for others without systematically observing how those decisions turn out. Whether such decisions reflect accurate forecasting or systematically distorted beliefs has important implications for equality of opportunity. We study this question in the context of teachers' recommendations for high school tracks by combining nationwide administrative data, randomized vignette experiments, belief elicitation, and a field experiment. Holding students' academic performance and interests constant, teachers are significantly less likely to recommend demanding academic tracks when students come from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. This differential treatment is accompanied by systematically inaccurate beliefs: teachers substantially overestimate the probability that high-achieving disadvantaged students will fail in academically demanding schools. We then provide teachers with personalized feedback on their previous recommendations and objective information on the realized success of disadvantaged students. The intervention substantially reduces socioeconomic gaps in recommendations for high-achieving students. Effects are concentrated among boys assigned to teachers with the largest prior recommendation gaps and the most inaccurate beliefs. Among the high-achieving disadvantaged boys most affected by the intervention, these changes translate into higher enrollment in demanding academic tracks, without detectable adverse effects on short-run academic performance. |
| JEL: | I24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35701 |
| By: | Martins, Pedro (Nova School of Business and Economics); Silva, Pedro (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona); Temudo, Madalena (Nova School of Business and Economics); Pinho, Ana (Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies) |
| Abstract: | Vocational education and training (VET) may accelerate entry into the labour market while reducing participation in further education. We quantify this trade-off in the context of a school-based vocational system. We draw on administrative data linked to a post-secondary survey for five cohorts in Portugal. We exploit the institutional structure of the educational system to address self-selection. Identification leverages leave-out variation in the share of lower-secondary classmates who subsequently choose VET. We find a pronounced trade-off in early post-school transitions for students whose track choices respond to those of their peer choices: vocational enrolment increases employment by 26-34 percentage points and improves several job quality indicators; on the other hand, VET reduces further education participation by 30-40 percentage points. VET is also associated with higher NEET incidence, an effect that appears to reflect earlier exposure to unemployment rather than inactivity during the school-to-work transition. Additional analyses suggest important heterogeneity across VET school types and fields of specialisation, with smoother transitions in (publicly funded) private VET schools, and engineering-related fields. |
| Keywords: | school-based vocational education, peer choices, school-to-work transition, NEET, job quality |
| JEL: | I21 I26 J24 C26 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18884 |
| By: | Behrer, A. Patrick (World Bank); Goodman, Joshua (Boston University); Goyer, J. Parker (College Board); Park, R. Jisung (University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | Nearly the entire world's population breathes air exceeding WHO pollution guidelines, but the extent to which that exposure impairs the accumulation of human capital is not well understood. We study this using longitudinal PSAT data on nearly 10 million U.S. high school students, comparing the same student's scores across attempts preceded by differing air quality and instrumenting for local PM2.5 with smoke from distant wildfires. A year of observed pollution exposure reduces learning by 0.04-0.06 standard deviations, or 14-19% of typical annual score growth. The damage comes almost entirely from moderate pollution days (8–12 μg/m3), below the EPA's historical standard, and from exposure during the school year rather than summer, pointing to instructional disruption as a mechanism. Effects are three times larger in disadvantaged schools and among Black and Hispanic students, who are harmed more by the same exposure. Exposure to air pollution widens achievement gaps. |
| Keywords: | air pollution, PM2.5, learning, student achievement, wildfire smoke |
| JEL: | I2 I24 Q5 Q53 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18904 |
| By: | Joseph Eshun (University of Hawai‘i at MÄ noa); Timothy J. Halliday (University of Hawai‘i at MÄ noa, University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization, IZA); Rachel Inafuku (University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization); Jamie C. Higa (University of Hawai‘i at MÄ noa, HCAMP); Troy M. Furutani (University of Hawai‘i at MÄ noa, HCAMP); Nathan M. Murata (University of Hawai‘i at MÄ noa, HCAMP); Erik E. Swartz (University of Hawai‘i at MÄ noa, HCAMP) |
| Abstract: | Concussions are among the most common acute health shocks experienced by adolescents, yet little is known about their causal effects on educational outcomes. We study the impact of diagnosed sports-related concussions on academic performance and behavioral incidents using a unique administrative dataset linking the Hawai‘i Department of Education to a statewide concussion surveillance system. Leveraging the longitudinal structure of the data, we implement a staggered difference-in-differences design that compares students who sustain concussions at different points in time. We find that a first concussion leads to a 0.14-point decline in science GPA but has little effect on other academic or behavioral outcomes. We further examine the consequences of repeated concussions and find that students who sustain multiple concussions experience a 0.359-point decline in mathematics GPA and a 0.276 increase in behavioral offenses following their second injury. These findings suggest that the persistent educational consequences of an isolated concussion are relatively modest, whereas repeated concussion exposure leads to larger and broader disruptions in students’ academic performance and behavior. |
| Keywords: | Concussion, Student Achievement, Administrative Data, Human Capital |
| JEL: | I12 I21 I24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hae:wpaper:2026-1 |
| By: | Bleemer, Zachary; Rothstein, Jesse |
| Abstract: | American colleges and universities are highly stratified by pre-college academic achievement, family background, and institutional resources. We study the meritocratic consensus in American higher education: colleges that high-testing students (who are generally also from high-income families) attend spend dramatically more on instruction than do those that enroll lower-testing students. Stratification by test scores has been largely stable since the 1960s, but the stratification of instructional resources has risen sharply since 1970 at both private and public institutions. Non-academic admissions criteria like athletics, legacy, and affirmative action are second-order in determining the allocation of students to universities. Potential economic justifications for the positive association of instructional expenditures with student prior achievement – q-complementarity between achievement and resources, convex social returns to high human capital, and incentives to invest in learning prior to college – have little empirical support. Resource stratification across universities has not increased in the past decade, largely due to increased public funding of universities that enroll lower-testing students through financial aid programs like California’s CalGrant, but stratification within institutions is now rising swiftly. JEL Codes: I23, I24, N32, Z13 |
| Keywords: | Education, admissions, college, university, testing, stratifications |
| Date: | 2026–08–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt2s7426hb |
| By: | Thomas Dee; Chloe R. Gibbs; Rebecca Margolit-Chan; Lillian Morrell; James X. Sullivan |
| Abstract: | Timely high school completion is a critical step in successful transitions to post-secondary schooling and the labor market. This randomized controlled trial, deployed in two urban, disadvantaged school districts, tests the effectiveness of a mature and comprehensive student-support program on an unusually large scale (n=2, 528). While overall effects on graduation rates are small and statistically insignificant, exploratory analyses reveal notable variation by site and over time, mirroring heterogeneity in treatment timing and program implementation. These findings highlight the challenges of scaling interventions and raise concerns about generalizing results from small-scale, single-site evaluations. |
| JEL: | I24 I26 I31 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35558 |
| By: | Andrew Dustan; Diana Ngo |
| Abstract: | We analyze the large socioeconomic status (SES) gaps in public high school assignments in Mexico City, a centralized choice system with exam-based admissions. Using a rich structural model, decomposition, and simulations, we find that placement score differences explain 83% of the gap in assignment to elite schools, contrasted with preferences (6%) and location (5%). For less-preferred technical schools, preferences explain 64% of the gap, while score differences account for 34%. High-SES students have a substantial advantage on the placement test beyond what is predicted by multiple contemporaneous ability measures, raising concerns about the distributional impacts of exam-based admissions. |
| Keywords: | School choice; inequality; high-stakes exams |
| JEL: | I21 I24 D63 |
| Date: | 2026–09–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwm:wpaper:178 |
| By: | Thomas F. Epper (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, IESEG School of Management, Univ. Lille); Ernst Fehr (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, Department of Economics, University of Zürich); Kristoffer B. Hvidberg (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen,); Claus T. Kreiner (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Søren Leth-Petersen (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Basit Zafar (Department of Economics, University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | We examine whether individual preferences predict higher education choices. According to standard human capital theory, differences in individuals time and risk preferences lead to differences in educational investments. Testing this hypothesis is challenging, as it requires measuring individuals preferences, doing so before they make educational investments, and subsequently observing their educational choices. We combine incentivized, experimentally elicited measures of time and risk preferences for a large, representative sample of 18–19-year-old Danes with administrative data on subsequent higher education choices, programspecific earnings trajectories, prior school performance, and family background. In line with theory, we find that more patient individuals choose longer education programs and programs with steeper early career earnings profiles, while more risk averse individuals select programs with lower earnings dispersion and reduced downside risk. These relationships remain strong after controlling for cognitive ability, prior academic performance, and family background. Our findings suggest that preferences have a substantial impact on real world educational investments and have implications for educational sorting. |
| Keywords: | Risk Preferences, Time Preferences, Educational Choices |
| JEL: | I23 I24 I26 C91 |
| Date: | 2026–09–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2618 |
| By: | David Autor; Tanya Rodchenko; Josh Martin; Zanna Iscenko; Scott Strand; David Pearl; Melissa Ferere |
| Abstract: | Whether AI assistance builds or erodes professional expertise is unsettled. In a pre-registered three-month randomized controlled trial, we gave 133 practicing patent lawyers at eleven U.S. intellectual property law firms access to a custom AI drafting assistant and measured both their performance while using AI and their professional judgment afterward without it. All work was scored by blinded expert patent attorneys. Paralleling findings from other white-collar domains, AI access raised the quality of work delivered on benchmark patent drafting tasks at 10 days (0.34 SD, p = 0.03) and 90 days (0.38 SD, p = 0.01), with larger gains among junior lawyers. After three months, all subjects redlined an existing patent application without AI, a core task of patent practice requiring expert judgment. Treated lawyers outperformed controls by 0.32 SD (p = 0.04), but this advantage was concentrated entirely among senior lawyers (0.45 SD, p = 0.02). Junior lawyers showed no average gain; their scores instead bifurcated, with sharply fewer mediocre scores offset by more poor and more good ones. The largest gains from AI thus accrued to the lawyers who retained the least. Foundational expertise may be a prerequisite for extracting durable skill from AI-assisted practice. |
| JEL: | I24 I29 J0 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35720 |
| By: | Victoria Gregory |
| Abstract: | College graduates earn more on average than high school graduates. This college premium differs over the life cycle depending on how earnings are measured. |
| Keywords: | educational attainment; college earnings premium |
| Date: | 2026–08–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00001:103675 |
| By: | Nozaki, Yuko |
| Abstract: | When a school day disappears, who absorbs it? This paper observes the complete same-day time accounts of children and both parents around Japan's transition to a five-day school week. Under the biweekly regime of 2001, the national time-use survey administratively assigned households to adjacent school and no-school Saturdays, shifting attendance by 40 percentage points; the identical calendar positions in 2006 provide a placebo after the full abolition of Saturday classes in 2002. Mothers' daily market work is a precise zero: equivalence tests reject effects larger than 11 minutes, or 0.06 of a control standard deviation. Children aged ten and older absorb the half-day instead-a child induced to attend loses 58 minutes of sleep, along with television and family time-while fathers work about 25 minutes more. Prefecture-level reduced forms scale with the local first stage while intercepts are indistinguishable from zero, consistent with an attendance channel. After abolition, the baseline comparison shows mothers' Saturday participation falling 4.1 percentage points relative to women aged 25-59 without coresident children under 16; exact age standardization leaves a similar 3.3-point reform-interval estimate with lower precision. School childcare is capitalized into standing arrangements that adjust over longer horizons rather than expressed through mothers' day-to-day labor supply. |
| Keywords: | parental labor supply, childcare, school schedules, time use, children's sleep, intrahousehold allocation |
| JEL: | J22 J13 D13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1808 |
| By: | Dongwoo Kim |
| Abstract: | South Korea has the world's lowest fertility and an intense education race. Families devote nine percent of lifetime income to education, mostly to private tutoring with near-zero measured returns. I show that competition for coveted careers generates an assignment externality: when all families spend more, the admission bar rises and children become costly. In a quantitative model calibrated to this mechanism, replacing score-based assignment with a capacity-preserving lottery raises completed fertility by 0.24 children per couple. Pronatal transfers deliver one eighth of that increase. Education taxes deliver almost none. Preference shifts, not a fiercer race, explain the decline across cohorts. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.27980 |