This study evaluates techniques to identify high-quality teachers. Since tenure restricts dismissals of experienced teachers, schools must predict productivity and dismiss those expected to perform ineffectively prior to tenure receipt. Many states rely on evaluation scores to guide these personnel decisions without considering other dimensions of…

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption in education. We employ a gravity model to estimate its impact on international student credit mobility. Data on inbound and outbound students to and from four Spanish universities between the academic years 2017-2018 and 2021-2022 are used. While COVID-19 significantly reduced participation…

State and federal governments invest millions of dollars in providing accurate and relevant information on expected outcomes to students pursuing higher education, but whether such information targets what students value about college is unclear. We use new survey data to identify the extent to which conventional indicators for college quality and…

There remains a gap in college completion rates for Black and Hispanic students. Universities have focused on creating a diverse student body (peer effects), a diverse faculty (role model effects) and on providing resources to boost completion rates. This paper tests these effects in a panel data set of 9800 observations from 1493 universities…

Many studies suggest a relationship between education and political participation, but only some address causality. We add to this by re-examining the German case. For identification, we exploit an exogenous increase in compulsory schooling, and use data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). The data enable analyses that do not rely…

Students in the UK apply to university with teacher-predicted examination grades, rather than actual results. These predictions have been shown to be inaccurate, and to favour certain groups, leading to concerns about teacher bias. We ask whether it is possible to improve on the accuracy of teachers' predictions by predicting pupil achievement…

We present new estimates of the internal rate of return to early childhood education. Utilizing the nationwide expansion of preschool education in Japan between 1960 and 1980, we initially assess the impact of preschool attendance on high school graduation and college enrollment for men. Subsequently, we compute the social rate of return to…