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- Artmann, Elisabeth, et al.
(author)
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Field of study and family outcomes
- 2018
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This paper uses administrative data from 16 cohorts of the Dutch population to study the relationship between field of study and family outcomes. We first document considerable variation by field of study for a range of family outcomes. To get to causal effects, we use admission lotteries that were conducted in the Netherlands to allocate seats for four substantially oversubscribed studies. We find that field of study matters for partner choice, which for women also implies an effect on partners' earnings. Fertility of women is not affected and evidence for men is mixed, but we find evidence for intergenerational effects on children's education. This means that field of study does not only affect individual labor market outcomes but also causally influences other important dimensions of a person's life.
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- Fredriksson, Peter, et al.
(author)
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LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF CLASS SIZE
- 2013
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In: Quarterly Journal of Economics. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0033-5533 .- 1531-4650. ; 128:1, s. 249-285
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article evaluates the long-term effects of class size in primary school. We use rich data from Sweden and exploit variation in class size created by a maximum class size rule. Smaller classes in the last three years of primary school (age 10 to 13) are beneficial for cognitive and noncognitive ability at age 13, and improve achievement at age 16. Most important, we find that smaller classes have positive effects on completed education, wages, and earnings at age 27 to 42. The estimated wage effect is large enough to pass a cost-benefit test.
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3. |
- Fredriksson, Peter, et al.
(author)
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Parental Responses to Public Investments in Children : Evidence from a Maximum Class Size Rule
- 2016
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In: The Journal of human resources. - 0022-166X .- 1548-8004. ; 51:4, s. 832-868
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We study differential parental responses to variation in class size induced by a maximum class size rule in Swedish schools. In response to an increase in class size: (i) only high-income parents help their children more with homework; (ii) all parents are more likely to move their child to another school; and (iii) only low-income children find their teachers harder to follow when taught in a larger class. These findings indicate that public and private investments in children are substitutes, and help explain why the negative effect of class size on achievement in our data is concentrated among low-income children.
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5. |
- Isacsson, Gunnar, 1964-
(author)
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Essays on the twins approach in empirical labor economics
- 1999
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Estimates of the Return to Schooling in Sweden from a Large Sample of Twins: A large sample of twins was used to examine whether conventional estimates of the return to schooling in Sweden are biased because ability is omitted from the earnings-schooling relationship. Ignoring measurement error, the results indicate that omitting ability from the earnings-schooling relationship leads to estimates that are positively biased. However, reasonable estimates of the measurement-error-adjusted returns are both above and below the unadjusted estimates, showing that the results depend crucially on a parameter not known at this time. However, an estimate of the reliability ratio was obtained using two measures on educational attainment. With this estimate of the reliability ratio the measurement-error-adjusted estimate of the return to schooling in the sample of identical twins indicates that there is at most a slight ability bias in the conventional estimates of the return to schooling. The fundamental assumption of this kind of study is that within-pair differences in educational attainment are randomly determined. This assumption was also tested, but no strong evidence to reject it was found.Estimating the Economic Return to Educational Levels from Data on Twins: This paper relaxes some restrictions of previous twins-based estimates of the effects of education on earnings. First, it estimates a piece-wise linear relationship between the natural logarithm of annual earnings and years of schooling. Second, the measurement error corrections are based on a less restrictive, "non-classical", measurement error model. The estimation strategy implies that the issue of ability bias can be investigated separately in different parts of the educational distribution. The results indicated that the linear relationship between the logarithm of annual earnings and years of schooling is rejected. Furthermore, the results in the sample of identical (MZ) twins indicated both that the ability bias could be of different sign and of different magnitude in different parts of the educational distribution. The twins-based estimates in the sample of fraternal (DZ) twins did not display any marked differences compared to the cross-sectional estimates. Finally, the paper presents results indicating that previous error-corrected within-pair estimates of the average return to years of schooling are not specifically sensitive to the choice of measurement error model.Twin Data vs. Longitudinal Data to Control for Unobserved Variables in Earnings Functions - Which Are the Differences?: An empirical comparison was made of two different methods to control for unobserved variables in earnings functions, the longitudinal and the twins approach. The application concerns the estimation of the marriage premium. The purpose of this comparison is to illustrate advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches. The estimates were obtained by exploiting the longitudinal dimension of a large sample of male Swedish twins, so that within-individual (longitudinal) and within-pair (twins-based) estimates could be obtained in the same sample. Both types of estimates were below the corresponding cross-sectional (OLS) estimates. However, there were substantial differences between the within-individual and the within-pair estimates. It was demonstrated that the differences between the within-individual and within-pair estimates could not be explained by classification error in marital status. An alternative explanation to the difference was investigated, namely that the within-individual estimates tend to capture short run premiums whereas the within-pair estimates tend to capture long-run premiums. Finally, the within-individual estimates have higher standard errors than the within-pair estimates. This result is likely due to the larger amount of within-variation in the twin dimension of the data.
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6. |
- Kessel, Dany, 1982-
(author)
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School Choice, School Performance and School Segregation : Institutions and Design
- 2018
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained chapters. The first chapter, Are Parents Uninformed? – The Impact of School Performance Information on School Choice Behavior and Student Assignment, is co-authored by Elsisabet Olme. We investigate the effects of school performance information on school choice behavior and student assignment. A randomly selected group of students, about to choose middle school, were provided with information about the performance of the available schools. Households that received the information became more prone to choose a top-performing school. This effect is driven by native and high-skilled households. We simulate how this change in choice behavior translates into changes in school assignment. We find that enrollment in the top-performing schools increases but the effect is muted by limited capacity. We also find that the treatment increases the gap in school performance between advantaged and disadvantaged households, decreases segregation in terms of migration background and increases segregation in terms of parental skill-level. The second chapter, School Choice Priority Structures and School Segregation, is also co-authored by Elsisabet Olme. We evaluate how school segregation is affected by altering the priority structures in a school choice program. We evaluate three priority structures, one proximity-based, one lottery-based and one based on soft quotas. Using actual choice data and simulations we find that that priority structures do affect school segregation. When reserving seats for different groups, schools are less segregated compared to when using systems where priorities are based on proximity or a lottery. We find that the average costs in terms of welfare are limited but that the different priority structures benefit different subgroups. In the third chapter, Debiasing the Gender Differences in Willingness to Compete – The Effects of General Information on the Gender Gap and Efficiency, I explore if informing people about the gender differences in the willingness to compete and the accompanying inefficiencies can reduce said differences and inefficiencies. In an experiment where the participants got to choose whether to compete or not, a random sample of participants were informed about the gender differences in willingness to compete and the related inefficiencies. Among those not informed, men were much more likely to compete than women. There were also significant inefficiencies from low-performing men choosing to compete and high-performing women choosing not to. The treatment reversed the gender gap and significantly reduced inefficiency. The fourth chapter, The Housing Wealth Effect: Quasi-Experimental Evidence is co-authored by Roine Vestman and Björn Tyrefors Hinnerich. We exploit a quasi-experiment that occurred in Stockholm in 2007 when the contract of Stockholm's city airport was unexpectedly renewed. We estimate an immediate shock of approximately 16 percent to house prices close to the airport. This source of price variation is ideal to identify housing wealth effects since it is local and unrelated to variation in macroeconomic conditions. Using a household data set with granular geographic information on primary residence, we find an MPC on cars of less than 0.2 cents per dollar.
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7. |
- Ketel, Nadine, et al.
(author)
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Do Dutch dentists extract monopoly rents?
- 2018
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- We exploit admission lotteries to estimate the payoffs to the dentistry study in the Netherlands. Using data from up to 22 years after the lottery, we find that in most years after graduation dentists earn around 50,000 Euros more than they would earn in their next-best profession. The payoff is larger for men than for women but does not vary with high school GPA. The large payoffs cannot be attributed to longer working hours, larger human capital investments or sacrifices in family outcomes. The natural explanation is that Dutch dentists extract a monopoly rent, which we attribute to the limited supply of dentists in the Netherlands. We discuss policies to curtail this rent.
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8. |
- Ketel, Nadine, et al.
(author)
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The Returns to Medical School: Evidence from Admission Lotteries
- 2016
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In: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. - : American Economic Association. - 1945-7782 .- 1945-7790. ; 8:2, s. 225-254
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We exploit admission lotteries to estimate the returns to medical school in the Netherlands. Using data from up to 22 years after the lottery, we find that in every single year after graduation doctors earn at least 20 percent more than people who end up in their next-best occupation. Twenty-two years after the lottery the earnings difference is almost 50 percent. Only a small fraction of this difference can be attributed to differences in working hours and human capital investments. The returns do not vary with gender or ability, and shift the entire earnings distribution.
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