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on Education |
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Issue of 2026–09–28
eighteen papers chosen by João Carlos Correia Leitão, Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Otten, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether gender differences in teacher-assigned grades vary systematically across subjects. Using data from German secondary schools, I compare teacher-assigned grades with anonymously graded standardized test scores within a difference-in-differences framework. Across six core subjects spanning the humanities and STEM, I find systematic grading differentials favoring female students. The estimated differential is largest in German and Math and substantially smaller in English and the sciences, indicating considerable cross-subject heterogeneity. The differential also varies markedly by school track and teacher experience, with systematically larger estimates in the academic track and particularly pronounced differentials among novice teachers. |
| Keywords: | Gender differences, Teacher grading, Grade test differential, Educational inequality |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J16 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:343541 |
| By: | Isaac Ahimbisibwe; Scott E. Carrell; Travis Lybbert |
| Abstract: | This study examines how social influences on academic performance evolve during transition to university when students encounter new social environments and publicly observable signals of academic ability. Using administrative data from a large, elite, and linguistically and culturally heterogeneous public university in Uganda and exploiting random assignment of students to dormitories, we examine how exposure to coethnic peers and peers with scholarship status affects academic performance. We find that greater exposure to peers from similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds improve academic achievement early in university, but these effects fade over time. In contrast, exposure to scholarship peers generates persistent gains in academic performance that increase in magnitude over time. Our setting allows us to distinguish between peers’ underlying academic ability and publicly observable signals of ability since scholarship status is visible, while underlying academic preparation is not. We find that exposure to scholarship peers improves academic performance regardless of those peers’ underlying ability, while exposure to high-ability peers without a scholarship signal has no detectable effect. These results suggest that students respond more strongly to observable signals of academic standing than to peers’ underlying academic preparation. Taken together, our findings indicate that the sources of academic influence evolve over time. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35728 |
| By: | Ichimura, Hidehiko (University of Arizona, Department of Economics); Sawada, Yasuyuki (University of Tokyo, Faculty of Economics); Takayasu, Yutaro (Hitotsubashi University, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study); Tanaka, Mari (University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | When societies transition from hereditary to meritocratic systems, to what extent does educational expansion broaden access to elite positions and change inherited patterns of occupational sorting? We study Japan after the Meiji Restoration, which abolished samurai hereditary privileges in public-sector positions and modernized education. Exploiting cohort-specific discontinuities in access to secondary schooling created by the expansion of public secondary schools, we find that greater access increased elite attainment among both samurai and commoner families, but most additional elites entered sectors historically associated with their family background. Many had non-elite fathers, indicating greater upward intergenerational mobility into elite status. |
| Keywords: | social mobility, intergenerational mobility, secondary education, social transition, history |
| JEL: | J62 I24 I26 N35 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18924 |
| By: | Petter Lundborg; Adrian Nieto |
| Abstract: | We examine how early exposure to STEM professionals in the local neighborhood shapes children’s long run educational and labor market outcomes. To identify causal effects, we use Swedish register data and several sources of variation in exposure to STEM qualified neighbors measured at the 100 by 100 meter grid. Exposure during compulsory education raises children’s math performance, and evidence points to social ties as the main channel. It also increases the presence of boys and girls in science programs in high school and university, but mainly boys are more likely to complete a STEM bachelor degree. This gender gap persists into adulthood: STEM employment and earnings rise predominantly for boys. The results show that high skill professionals can serve as community based informal role models and that neighbors can shape long run educational and labor market trajectories. |
| Keywords: | STEM, science, neighbors, role model, human capital, labor trajectory |
| JEL: | I2 J2 J3 O3 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12955 |
| By: | Benjamin Goldman; Jamie Gracie; Sonya Porter |
| Abstract: | Children from low-income families face barriers outside the classroom that impede learning and limit opportunities for economic mobility. We study Communities In Schools (CIS), a program that places coordinators in high-poverty schools to connect struggling students with personalized support. Coordinators match students to resources that address academic, behavioral, and basic needs—such as tutoring, mental health counseling, and housing stabilization. CIS is the largest program of its kind in the U.S., reaching 2 million students annually. Using the staggered rollout of CIS, we find that the program boosts test scores for struggling students. These gains persist, raising high school completion and adult earnings. Improvements in test scores explain only about half of CIS's impact on high school graduation; the remainder reflects progress on non-cognitive outcomes such as attendance and behavior. Consistent with CIS's emphasis on personalization, coordinators tailor services to distinct student needs, yet students with different needs experience comparable long-run gains. Placing a trusted adult in schools, backed by a network of programs and services, may offer a scalable way to improve economic mobility. |
| JEL: | H52 I21 I24 I38 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35740 |
| By: | Xia, Yiming; Zhang, Anwen; Wang, Weidong; Wen, Ming |
| Abstract: | Curiosity motivates learning yet has rarely been studied in economics. Using random assignment to classrooms in the first year of middle school, we document persistent and long-term effects of peer curiosity that extend into early adulthood. A 10- percentage-point increase in the share of highly curious peers raises higher education enrollment by 4.7 percentage points after seven years, against a baseline rate of 68 percent, with gains concentrated in four-year bachelor's programs. Exploratory analyses point to higher aspirations, better time management, and greater parental investment as plausible mechanisms. These results suggest that curiosity generates lasting social returns. |
| Keywords: | Curiosity, Peer Effects, Adolescents, Educational Attainment |
| JEL: | I21 I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1818 |
| By: | Borra, Cristina; Cuevas-Ruiz, Pilar |
| Abstract: | Gender gaps in measured academic performance often influence access to selective university programs, and, consequently, educational sorting and subsequent career trajectories. Differences in the design of high-stakes evaluation methods may therefore affect these gaps by changing how students’ performance is assessed. We examine whether differences in evaluation methods contribute to gender gaps in measured performance using population-level data from a non-self-selected setting in which continuous teacher-assigned grades and a blind, standardized university entrance examination jointly determine university access. Within-student comparisons show that gender gaps in measured performance are approximately 0.46 standard deviations larger under non-blind continuous assessment than under blind, standardized testing. Our findings provide little support for explanations based on competitive pressure or systematic advantages enjoyed by female students under continuous assessment arising from teacher grading practices or differential effort. The results are instead consistent with gender differences in non-cognitive traits that are more fully captured under continuous assessment, as well as with differences in the extent to which students identify with the content being evaluated. |
| Keywords: | competitive pressure;evaluation methods;gender gaps;gendered content;grading bias;non-cognitive traits;university access |
| JEL: | J16 I21 |
| Date: | 2026–08–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140840 |
| By: | Fischer, Alexander (Trivago, Germany); Gorshkov, Andrei (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Sandoy, Tróndur M. (University of Faroe Islands, Faroe Islands); Walldorf, Jeanette (Ministry of Children and Education, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | Do alumni ties preserve economic advantage? Linking random tutorial-group assignments at a Danish business school to administrative career data, we show that students align careers more with group peers than others in the same cohort, particularly through shared workplaces. These effects are especially pronounced among students from the wealthiest families and concentrated in top-paying firms. More exposure to affluent peers raises earnings, access to top-paying jobs, and increases the probability of reaching the top income ranks for similarly privileged students, while not for others. Job transitions to group peers point to gains from peer-connected moves, again concentrated among wealthier students. |
| Keywords: | Social connections; Peer effects; Elite university; Social mobility |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–09–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_017 |
| By: | Gertsberg, Marina (University of Melbourne); Yimfor, Emmanuel (Columbia University) |
| Abstract: | Professionals invest heavily in gaining brief access to gatekeepers, yet we know little about whether such encounters affect career outcomes. We ask whether an editor's seminar visit raises junior scholars' chances of publishing in that editor's journal. We link seminar visits at top-100 U.S. finance departments to junior faculty publication histories and editorial rosters of leading economics and finance journals. Because departments select whom to invite and editors choose where to visit, we exploit seminar rotation norms: departments typically wait several years before re-inviting a speaker, generating predictable variation in the timing of editor visits. Effects are close to zero at two-, three-, and four-year horizons. We rule out increases of 50 percent or more relative to baseline at every horizon, and of 30 percent or more after three and four years. Point estimates are more positive for women, scholars at lower-ranked schools, editors who visit fewer schools, and pairs with greater research overlap, suggesting information or access benefits. We find no persistent gains outside the editor's journal. A single editor visit yields no large average publication gain, though smaller gains where access is scarce remain possible. |
| Keywords: | professional networks, academic publishing, editorial favoritism, personal connections, causal inference |
| JEL: | A11 A14 D83 L82 I23 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18922 |
| By: | Yana Gallen; Melanie Wasserman |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first causal evidence that gender affects the information an individual receives about careers. We conduct a large-scale field experiment in which real college students seek career information from 10, 000 working professionals. We randomize whether a professional receives a message from a male or a female student. When students ask broadly for information about a career, female students receive substantially more information on work/life balance than male students. This gender difference persists when students specifically ask about work/life balance. A survey of professionals suggests non-altruistic motives for discussing work/life balance with women. Combining findings from the field experiment and results from an information intervention, we conclude that gender gaps in information received about work/life balance are consequential for gender gaps in career intentions. |
| JEL: | C93 J16 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35750 |
| By: | Oleš, Tomáš; Roncone, Francesco |
| Abstract: | Does artificial intelligence automate work or augment workers' productive capabilities? Our results show that it can do both, through distinct channels that conventional exposure measures obscure. We distinguish these channels by linking U.S. patents to occupations' tasks and tools, with patent-task matches capturing automation and patent-tool matches capturing augmentation. Using the origins and diffusion of historical AI breakthroughs to predict contemporary local exposure, we find large but opposing labor-market effects. A one-standarddeviation increase in AI automation reduces occupational employment by 21 percent, with little effect on wages; AI augmentation instead raises wages by 8 percent, alongside some employment growth. We also find that a larger AI share within each channel strengthens labor displacement through automation while shifting augmentation's effects from employment growth toward wage gains. The labor-market consequences of AI therefore depend critically on the balance between automation and augmentation rather than overall exposure alone. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Augmentation, Local Labor Markets, Occupational Tasks, Occupational Tools |
| JEL: | J23 J24 J30 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1821 |
| By: | C. Kirabo Jackson |
| Abstract: | A large literature posits a central role for human capital in determining macroeconomic output, while another documents substantial private returns to educational investment. However, whether private gains translate into aggregate gains remains uncertain, as signaling, displacement, or general-equilibrium adjustment may drive a wedge between private and aggregate returns. This paper bridges these literatures with causal evidence that state-level school finance reforms (SFRs) increase macroeconomic output. First, I combine design-based micro estimates of SFR effects on private earnings with a cohort replacement framework to simulate state-level earnings per worker. The simulation predicts little change for 10 to 15 years, then gradual gains as treated cohorts enter the labor force, reaching 7.8 percent after 60 years. Next, I test this prediction using the staggered implementation of SFRs across U.S. states. In an event-study framework, state-level earnings per worker track the predicted path, remaining flat through about 15 years before rising roughly 4.7 percent above counterfactual levels after 30 years — consistent with private earnings gains aggregating to the broader economy. Finally, I show that these effects extend to broader economic output, with GDP per capita declining modestly initially before rising to more than 5 percent above its counterfactual path after 30 years. |
| JEL: | E24 H52 I22 I26 J24 O47 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35755 |
| By: | Andrea Weber; David Card; Wolfgang Dauth; Wolfgang Frimmel; Julia Schmieder; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | How big are the gains to international migration? How do they vary across migrants? We study these questions using linked administrative data for Austria and Germany, focusing on migrants who were steadily employed 2-4 years before their move and using their previous co-workers as a comparison group for a difference-in-differences design. We combine data from the origin and destination countries for 5 years after the move, allowing us to assess the gains for those who remain in the destination and those who return. On average, migrants from Austria to Germany experience an immediate and persistent rise of around 13% in their daily wage relative to their matched co-workers, while migrants from Germany to Austria gain about 4%. The higher returns for Austrians are mainly driven by higher average wages in Germany, rather than by differential selection of migrants. Consistent with a dynamic learning model, the returns to migration are largest for migrants who remain in the destination country, smaller for those who return after 1-4 years, and zero or even slightly negative for those who return in less than a year. They are also larger for migrants who follow established cross-border networks between workplaces. To help interpret our findings we conduct a parallel analysis of domestic migrants who move to a larger city (Vienna or one of the 5 largest cities in Germany). “Big city” movers experience gains in wages of about 5% for Austrians and 10% for Germans. Again the gains are largest for those who remain in the destination city, with smaller effects for those who move on. |
| JEL: | J61 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35774 |
| By: | Hellenkamp, Detlef |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses how generative artificial intelligence is reshaping the requirements of academic authorship in higher education and explores the implications this development holds for a contemporary culture of assessment. It begins from the observation that generative systems can substantially accelerate scholarly work in areas such as structuring, drafting, and tutorial support, while simultaneously generating new risks for academic integrity, validity, and reliability. To address this development, the paper develops the theoretical framework of functional tool indifference. What matters, on this view, is not the tool as such, but whether validity, traceability, and human responsibility are preserved throughout the scholarly process. On this basis, the paper proposes a distinction between a merely technical product and a human artefact. An AI-generated output becomes a human artefact attributable in scholarly terms only through the human act of validation – that is, through review, selection, revision, source checking, and responsible contextualization. From this perspective, academic authorship shifts away from mere text production towards capacities of validation, verification, and judgement. For higher education, this entails the need for a transformed assessment culture that evaluates not only end products, but also processes of production, reflective performance, and the logic of evidentiary support. The paper therefore argues for a dual model of assessment based on process integrity and artefact validity, and for sustained AI governance that strengthens higher education institutions as sites of methodological, reflective, and validation competence. |
| Keywords: | Generative AI, higher education, academic integrity, assessment culture, academic authorship, AI-assisted assessment, future skills, validation competence |
| JEL: | I21 I23 I28 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:343650 |
| By: | Aguilar-Bohorquez, Joseph (University of Minnesota); Goldhaber, Dan (University of Washington); Grout, Cyrus (University of Washington); Mykerezi, Elton (University of Minnesota); Pathak, Prayash (University of Minnesota); Sojourner, Aaron (Upjohn Institute for Employment Research) |
| Abstract: | Employers often use open-ended questions in hiring, but usually responses aren't recorded, and knowledge about the usefulness of such responses is limited. This study investigates properties of written responses to open-ended questions collected over many years via an application tracking platform that school districts use to hire teachers. We develop a scalable process to discover topics within the corpus of responses to each question and to score documents. It adapts a traditional qualitative topic modeling approach, Inductive Thematic Analysis, to combine the strengths of researcher judgment and large language models while preserving interpretability and transparency. Questions elicit distinct information regarding a candidate’s pedagogical skills, classroom management, professional philosophy and growth mindset, relational and cultural competence, and other professional attributes. Questions regarding classroom activities and student progress generate more dispersion in responses across applicants and fewer extreme demographic selection ratios. This framework empowers researchers and practitioners to assess language-based hiring instruments transparently and to monitor potential demographic disparities. |
| Keywords: | education, hiring, teachers, topic modeling |
| JEL: | H75 I21 J45 D83 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18942 |
| By: | Federica Coelli (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, CEPR, and CESifo); Difei Ouyang (University of International Business and Economics); Weidi Yuan (Nanjing University); Yuan Zi (Geneva Graduate Institute, CEPR, and CESifo) |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that human capital accumulation can accelerate structural transformation without accelerating growth. We study China's 1999 higher education expansion, a large, rapid, and largely unanticipated increase in college graduates. We find that more exposed prefectures experienced larger increases in the skilled-labor share and shifted employment and value added from agriculture toward services. The reallocation extended to low-skilled workers. Consumer services absorbed most of the increase in employment, while producer services accounted for a disproportionate share of high-skilled employment growth. Yet more-exposed prefectures did not grow faster. A four-sector model rationalizes these patterns, showing how greater skill supply can generate broad-based servitization, but also a Baumol-type growth penalty when labor reallocates toward slower-growing sectors. Our findings highlight that the payoff to higher education depends not only on how much skill it creates, but also on whether the resulting structural transformation directs resources toward the economy's engines of productivity growth. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital; Structural Transformation; Higher Education Expansion; Servitization; China |
| JEL: | I25 J24 L16 O11 O14 |
| Date: | 2026–09–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp27-2026 |
| By: | Clark, Gregory; Nielsen, Christian Alexander Abildgaard |
| Abstract: | In this response to Lee Crawfurd's comment on The Returns to Education: A Meta-Study, we address his three main criticisms. We contend that estimates based on compulsory schooling laws constitute the most reliable evidence on causal returns to education. We show that our parsimonious approach to correcting for publication bias is preferable to more complex approaches that have biases of their own. Finally, we argue that the observed skewed distribution is most plausibly explained by selective omission of negative estimates. We therefore conclude that the comment does not undermine our central finding that reported returns to education are substantially inflated because of publication bias. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2026–08–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140802 |
| By: | Manasi Deshpande; Alessandra Voena; Jason B. Weitze |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effect of receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in childhood on adult outcomes using multiple sources of variation. Using variation across and within two quasi-experiments, we find that the program has heterogeneous effects that vary with the parental earnings response to SSI benefits: the program has positive effects on children when parents do not adjust their labor supply in response to SSI income (meaning household income increases), but zero or negative effects on children when parents offset the transfer by reducing earnings (meaning household income remains constant or falls). These results suggest that, relative to parent non-work time, income is crucial in the human capital production of low-income children with disabilities. We estimate a model of maternal labor supply and child human capital formation to quantify the relative importance of these channels. Our findings indicate that 1) the income effects of SSI on children's human capital are substantial, with a limited role for perverse incentive effects from conditioning benefits on disability status, and 2) parental work on net improves children's outcomes by increasing household resources, despite the potential decrease in parental time. |
| JEL: | I38 J13 J14 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35725 |