This paper studies whether specialized academic fields of study in secondary school, which are common in many countries, affect earnings as an adult. Identification is challenging, because it requires not just quasi-random variation into fields of study, but also an accounting of individuals' next-best alternatives. Our setting is Sweden, where at…

Why is it that children of immigrants often outdo their ethnic majority peers in educational aspirations yet struggle to keep pace with their achievements? This article advances the explanation that many immigrant communities, while positively selected on education, still have moderate absolute levels of schooling. Therefore, parents' education…

By exploiting an extensive pilot scheme that preceded an educational reform, this paper evaluates the effects of introducing a more comprehensive upper secondary school system in Sweden. The reform reduced the differences between academic and vocational tracks through prolonging and increasing the academic content of the latter. As a result, all…