This paper uses the Mincerian approach in an experimental way to examine the impact of education on household incomes (not labor earnings) of all workers (not just employees) across 162 countries. Our results are broadly similar to the conventionally estimated rates of return to education after allowing for the fact that earnings are only a part…

Access to Britain's highly-resourced private schools matters because of concerns surrounding social mobility. Using the UK Family Resources Survey, we document a high and mostly stable income concentration of private school access since 1997. Nevertheless, some low-income participation persists. Bursaries are income-progressive but cannot account…

This paper examines the effect of birth order on educational attainment in Lesotho. Using family fixed effects models, I find robust negative birth order effects on educational attainment. These results are in sharp contrast with the evidence from many developing countries, but are consistent with that from developed countries. Further, these…

Can information close socioeconomic gaps in parents' postsecondary aspirations for their children? We administer a survey experiment to a nationally representative sample of U.S. parents, who are also asked whether their child is academically prepared for college. We inquire whether parents prefer their child to pursue a four-year degree, two-year…

Household income shocks in developing countries are known to have an impact on the education investments for children. In this paper, we explore the effects of various income and expenditure shocks on educational investment and cognitive outcomes of children using three rounds of household-level panel data from Young Lives survey conducted in two…

This paper examines the effect of a tuition-free high school program launched in FY2010 in Japan on the high school enrollment rate and household spending. We have some interesting findings. First, the program contributed to improvement in the high school enrollment rate for poorer households. Second, the program stimulated household spending…

The accession of Eastern European countries to the European Union increased family wealth and the returns to schooling. I analyze the change in student achievement due to the EU accession of Eastern Europe building on a panel of six PISA waves covering more than 1 million students in 32 countries. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I find…

The recent growth in privately administered secondary education in many developed countries has been a widely observed phenomenon. The Australian private secondary school sector has grown faster than those in any other "OECD" nation, even though the average tuition fees charged by these schools have increased at double the nation's…

Higher birth order positions are associated with poorer outcomes due to smaller shares of resources received within the household. Using a sample of Panel Study of Income Dynamics-Child Development Supplement children, we investigate if the negative birth order effect we find in cognitive outcomes is due to unequal allocation of mother and father…

This paper investigates the gap in Financial Literacy (FL) between native and immigrant 15-year-old school students using data from the 2012 PISA Financial Literacy Assessment. The size of the gap is about 0.15 standard deviations, going up to 0.3 for first-generation immigrants. This is partly because immigrants have poorer economic background,…

Few studies have investigated the causal spillover effects of compulsory education on children's siblings. Using a regression discontinuity method, I find that Hong Kong's 1971 free compulsory primary education policy reduced the dropout probability for the eldest siblings of full policy beneficiaries, especially for children in low-income…

Using data from the USA, the study demonstrates that an individual's completed years of schooling later in life is positively related to his/her frequency of religious attendance during youth. Using the propensity score matching technique, the study shows that this relationship is causal. This conclusion remains valid for youths of different…

This paper examines the determinants of students' performance on the entrance test at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil. Particular attention is paid to the importance of family background variables, such as parents' education and family income, on students' performance and how they relate to the probability of attending public schools…

We examine how Japanese parents evaluate the current education system and assess possible reforms, based on a nationwide parent survey. Parents who have higher educational background, occupational status, and household income and expect higher education attainment from their children tend to be less satisfied with the current system and more in…

The aim of this paper is to explore the influence of peer behaviour on student marijuana consumption. Our hypothesis is that, in contrast to the traditional measures of peer group effects carried out at class or school level, the use of a closer peer group, which we relate to the group of friends, is more relevant in the explanation of marijuana…