The effects of affirmative action on the incentives to human capital accumulation are ambiguous from a theoretical perspective and the scarce empirical evidence on the matter provides mixed results. In this paper, we address this issue by investigating the impacts of Brazil's Law of Quotas on the students' performance in the college entrance exam,…

Today, one of the long-term development goals of Azerbaijan is to train competitive human capital in higher education in the 21st century in accordance with the modern requirements of the labour market. In this context, the modernisation of the quality assurance system in higher education in Azerbaijan is one of the priority issues. The article…

"The Recruit," told through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT), harnesses counter-storytelling to paint a cogent picture of how programs supposedly meant to address issues of social justice, in and of themselves, become new and more insidious versions of their predecessors. CRT posits that racism is inextricably embedded into the…

In this dissertation, I use data from Chile to study the determinants of schooling trajectories. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on higher education, Chapter 3 on secondary education, and Chapter 4 on teachers. Chapter 1 explores the role of a socio-emotional ability, self-efficacy, in understanding why students with comparable qualifications transit…

This dissertation addresses three separate questions in human capital and development economics. In the first chapter, I study how college admission concerns drive students' field choices in a field-specific college admission system. To study this question, I leverage a college admission policy reform in Ethiopia that sharply increased the…

Purpose: Every September, millions of students--elite human resources--enter higher education in China. This large-scale college-induced migration has substantial impacts on China's national and local labor markets. This study examines the migration pattern in college choice and admission among the Hui students in China. In doing so, we extend the…

Using newly available data from the Trajectories in Education and Careers Study, the first longitudinal study on a representative sample of high school students in Russia, we examined the importance of investments in human and cultural capital on students' mathematics and reading standardized examinations, as well as on the likelihood of…

Full-time undergraduate applicants to English universities must apply via the University and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS). By analysing the UCAS statements of 15 undergraduate applicants this article attempts to develop a critical understanding of the role that the personal statement has in applicants' formation of themselves as subjects…

At no other time in American history has the need for post-secondary educational attainment been so pervasively necessary. Since 2007, three in every four jobs created has required a bachelor's degree or higher. Such a prerequisite to fiscal viability occurs parallel with rising costs of college attendance, a nebulous financial aid process,…

This paper examines how entrepreneurial visions of the future contribute to neoliberalism's appropriation of language learning as a strategy for capital accumulation. Taking as an example South Korea's heavy investment in children's English language learning -- commonly known as early English education ("yeongeo jogi gyoyuk") -- it…

Neoliberalism is often understood as being both an epoch of capitalism and a zealous ideological commitment to the primacy of private property and free markets. In practice, it has tended towards mobilising state power in the interests of capital, remaking societies and individuals in this process. Perhaps inevitably, education systems, the world…

To evaluate how Advanced Placement courses affect college-going, we randomly assigned the offer of enrollment into an AP science course to over 1,800 students in 23 schools that had not previously offered the course. We find no substantial AP course effects on students' plans to enroll in college or on their college entrance exam scores. Yet AP…

This paper analyses admission decisions when students from different high school tracks apply for admission to university programmes. I derive a criterion that is optimal in the sense that it maximizes the graduation rates of the university programmes. The paper contains an empirical analysis that documents the relevance of theory and illustrates…

The Big Data movement and the renewed focus on data analytics are transforming everything from healthcare delivery systems to the way cities deliver services to residents. Now is the time to examine how this Big Data could help build smarter universities. While much of the cutting-edge research that is being done with Big Data is happening at…

For over 60 years, longitudinal research on tens of thousands of high ability and intellectually precocious youth has consistently revealed the importance of spatial ability for hands-on creative accomplishments and the development of expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) disciplines. Yet, individual differences in…