Public opinion on education policy around the world
Public opinion plays an important role in shaping education policy. The book "Public Opinion and the Political Economy of Education Policy around the World," just published at MIT Press under the editorship of Martin West from Harvard University and Ludger Woessmann from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, offers the first comparative inventory of the political economy of education policy in developed countries. Contributors compare public attitudes about such policy topics as education spending and the status of teachers across many countries. Additional country case studies examine partisan conflict over school spending in the US, the effect of information provision on public opinion in Germany, and demographic differences in education policy preferences in Switzerland. more...
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Learning time low also during second school lockdown
During the second Covid-related school closures in early 2021, school children in Germany spent 4.3 hours per day on school-related activities. This is nearly three-quarters of an hour more than during the first school closures in spring 2020, but still three hours less than before Covid. This is the result of a survey by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education among more than 2000 parents. Nearly one in four children spent no more than two hours a day on learning. School children still spent more time with TV, computer games, and smartphones (4.6 hours) each day than studying for school. A quarter of the students had daily joint lessons (e.g., via video), but 39% had this only once a week at most. Lower-performing students and children without a university-educated parent learned significantly less effectively and concentrated at home. more...
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Education level of refugees affects natives' attitudes
How does information about the education level of refugees influence natives' attitudes? Philipp Lergetporer and Marc Piopiunik from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, together with Lisa Simon from Stanford University, explore this question in a paper recently published in the European Economic Review. In a survey experiment, they randomly provide information on refugees' education level. This information increases respondents' beliefs that refugees are well-educated. It also improves general attitudes towards refugees and reduces concerns about fiscal burden, but also increases concerns about labor-market competition. more...
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Excellence initiative had level effect on university funding
The so-called Excellence Initiative was the largest competitive funding procedure to create German world-class universities. In a contribution just accepted for publication at the journal Higher Education Policy, Lukas Mergele from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education and Felix Winkelmayer from the University of Mannheim examine whether the Excellence Initiative spurred financial inequality in the higher education sector. For a period of 15 years, they analyze the third-party funding success of 78 universities that either won or lost the competition. They find that the Excellence Initiative augmented pre-existing differences in third-party funding across institutions. However, this was a one-off level effect that did not initiate a further self-reinforcing divergence process. more...
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Children's patience influences school-track choices
The link between children's patience and their later choice of education path is the topic examined by Silvia Angerer from UMIT Tirol, Jana Bolvashenkova, Daniela Glätzle-Rützler from the University of Innsbruck, Philipp Lergetporer from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, and Matthias Sutter from the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn in their new working paper. They find that patience measured among nearly 500 primary-school children predicts the choice of an academic secondary-school track three years later. more...
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Pay transparency law did not reduce gender pay gap
The Austrian pay transparency law, introduced in 2011, did not have the intended effect of aligning wages between men and women. This is the result of the new working paper by René Böheim from Johannes Kepler University Linz and Sarah Gust from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education. Only in larger firms did wages of newly hired women increase somewhat more due to the reform than of newly hired men. However, the share of women also decreased slightly in these firms. more...
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Education Expert Council on educational leadership
Good leadership leads to better educational outcomes, which in turn impact the prosperity of societies. In its new report "Leadership, Management, Governance: Responsibility in the Education System," the Expert Council on Education, with the participation of Ludger Woessmann, addresses the question of how leadership in German educational institutions can be improved. For the individual phases of education, the report addresses topics such as leadership qualification, decision-making powers, leadership styles, structures, and measures to create effective leadership. more...
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Advisory Council on lessons for digitization from the Covid crisis
The Covid pandemic has exposed significant gaps in Germany's digital transformation. In its new report, the Scientific Advisory Council at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, to which Ludger Woessmann contributes, draws lessons from the Covid crisis for digitization. To emerge stronger from the crisis and benefit from the crisis-induced digitization surge in the long term, Germany should remedy state organizational failures in schools and public administration, accelerate the digital transformation, and embed data protection more strongly in a general digital regulatory policy. more...
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IN THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS
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Youth pay a high price
The OECD report by Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann on reduced lifetime income due to closed schools feeds into articles on wsj.com and bloombergquint.com.
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ifo Institute takes stock of homeschooling
Contributions on the main TV news ZDF heute, ZDF Morgenmagazin, and zdf.de about the results of the study by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education on lost learning time during the lockdown.
Poor school record: Students learn less in lockdown
Interviews with Larissa Zierow in TV reports on SAT1 Bayern and 3sat Kulturzeit.
Deficient - Study on education in lockdown
Further TV reports on the study can be found, among others, on 3sat nano and Welt/N24 TV. Excerpts of the press conference are shown on welt.de and Reuters Video.
How students suffer from the lockdown
Radio interviews with Katharina Werner about the results of the ifo study on Covid and schools on Deutschlandfunk and NDR Kultur.
Learning in lockdown - Where is education headed?
Further radio reports on the study can be found on rbb Kultur, B5 aktuell Campusmagazin, and NDR.de, among others. Larissa Zierow discusses the results of the study on NDR Redezeit.
Hardly any additional learning
The study on learning time in the second lockdown is also covered by tagesschau.de, SZ.de, handelsblatt.com (see also commentary on handelsblatt.com), spiegel.de (see also commentary on spiegel.de), ZEIT Online, faz.net, wiwo.de, dpa, welt.de, Business Insider, bild.de, stern.de, berliner-zeitung.de, mopo.de, augsburger-allgemeine.de (see also commentary on augsburger-allgemeine.de), br.de, n-tv.de, rbb24, and Wiarda Blog.
Nothing learned: Can the lockdown school year still be saved?
In the MDR TV talk show Fakt ist! Aus Dresden, Larissa Zierow discusses the Covid school year with Saxony's Education Minister Christian Piwarz, among others.
School closures infringe on children's development
"Interview in the morning" with Ludger Woessmann on SZ.de about learning losses and psychological effects of school closures.
Politicians seem indifferent to the future of an entire generation of schoolchildren
In the "Speaker's Corner" on welt.de, Ludger Woessmann criticizes that the concerns of children are put last in the pandemic.
Children and adolescents must finally be prioritized
In a post on Blog Political Economy, Ludger Woessmann calls for priority for children and youth in the Covid crisis.
The school lockdown
In the podcast of the cluster of excellence ECONtribute, Ludger Woessmann talks about the effects of the school lockdown.
We expect very large learning losses
Larissa Zierow explains on n-tv.de why educational inequality could increase as a result of Covid.
Why online teaching should have been better
In an interview on MDR.de, Larissa Zierow talks about failures concerning online teaching.
Exit exams 2021: Will everything proceed normally?
On B5 aktuell Campusmagazin, Ludger Woessmann stresses the importance of final exams, especially during the Covid pandemic.
Some wear themselves out, others simply disappear
An article on Spiegel quotes Ludger Woessmann on the role of teachers during the pandemic.
Learning assessments during the pandemic
Die Zeit quotes Ludger Woessmann on nationwide learning assessments.
The post-virus class society
Die Zeit quotes Ludger Woessmann on the impact of the pandemic on inequality. Another article in Die Zeit quotes him on the role of school autonomy and external exams.
The digital education disaster
The Wirtschaftswoche quotes Ludger Woessmann on the burden of the Covid crisis for children.
School instead of summer vacation - How learning deficits are to be made up
Die Welt quotes Ludger Woessmann on support programs for disadvantaged children.
Least affected, hit hardest
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Tagesspiegel quote Ludger Woessmann on the loss of learning time during school closures.
Good education needs good leadership
The Süddeutsche Zeitung quotes Ludger Woessmann on the important role of leadership in education.
Do all people have to become academics?
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung quotes Ludger Woessmann on the income returns to a university degree.
Digitization of education
Katharina Werner talks about how to integrate digital learning into schools in NDR Info's "Future of Work" podcast. An article in "Pro"-Magazin quotes Larissa Zierow on which countries we can learn from regarding the digitization of schools.
Showing what is possible
The effectiveness of mentoring programs such as Rock Your Life!, evaluated by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, is the subject of articles on spiegel.de and rp-online.de.
Education emergency during the Covid crisis
The cover story of Cicero refers to Ludger Woessmann's calculations on later income losses due to school closures. Bild.de and zeit.de also refer to these calculations.
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Call for papers for PhD workshop "Causal Analyses of School Reforms"
On September 30 and October 1, 2021, the ifo Center for the Economics of Education and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center will jointly host the second PhD workshop "Causal Analyses of School Reforms" in the framework of the EffEE project. The young researchers will have the opportunity to discuss their results and conceptual considerations among each other and with senior researchers. Keynote speakers are Pia Pinger (Cologne) and Herman van de Werfhorst (Amsterdam). Submission deadline is July 31, 2021. For more information, please see the Call for Papers.
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Press conference on Covid school survey results
The recording of the press conference with Katharina Werner, Larissa Zierow, and Ludger Woessmann on the study by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education is available online.
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Talk series SCIENCE ON by the German Science Foundation
As part of the SCIENCE ON talk series by the German Science Foundation (DFG) in cooperation with the Federal Art Gallery, Ludger Woessmann discussed the topic "Learning in Lockdown - Where is Education Headed?" with Cordula Artelt and Bob Blume on April 13, 2021. The video of the talk is available online.
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Keynote lecture at digiGEBF conference "Covid and Education"
On April 22, 2021, Ludger Woessmann gave a keynote lecture at the conference "Covid and Education - Challenges and Opportunities from the Perspective of Educational Research" of the Society for Empirical Educational Research (GEBF) on the topic "Covid and the Consequences: (Not Only) an Economics of Education Perspective".
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Condition of schools after one year of pandemic
As part of an OECD webinar, Ludger Woessmann discussed education during the pandemic with Andreas Schleicher, Susi Kriemler, and Nicola Brandt on April 14, 2021. The recorded event can be found here.
"60 Minutes: Covid, Economics, and Finance" at TU Dresden
On April 15, 2021, Ludger Woessmann discussed at the online discussion series "60 Minutes: Covid, Economics, and Finance" at TU Dresden about the topic "Covid, Schools, and Universities".
Discussion evening "Legal Regulations of Distance Teaching: Necessary or Superfluous?"
On May 25, 2021, Larissa Zierow gave a presentation at the "Working Group of Social-Democratic Legal Practitioners Saxony (ASJ)", which also developed a proposal for a legally binding concept for digital teaching.
Lecture at the Education Congress of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation
Larissa Zierow spoke on the topic "High Achieving First-Generation University Students" at the Education Congress of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation on May 7, 2021.
Annual Conference of the Education Committee on "Education and Exogenous Shocks"
Katharina Werner, Ludger Woessmann, and Larissa Zierow gave presentations at the annual conference of the Economics of Education Committee of the German Economic Association on March 4/5, 2021. Program and abstracts can be found here.
26th Annual Meeting of the Society of Labor Economists
Several researchers from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education presented their work at the conference of the Society of Labor Economists on May 14/15, 2021. The full program is available online.
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Articles in refereed journals
Philipp Lergetporer, Marc Piopiunik, and Lisa Simon, "Does the Education Level of Refugees Affect Natives' Attitudes?", European Economic Review 134: 103710, 2021.
Lukas Mergele and Felix Winkelmayer, "The Relevance of the German Excellence Initiative for Inequality in University Funding", Higher Education Policy, online, 2021.
Monographs
Martin R. West and Ludger Woessmann (eds.), "Public Opinion and the Political Economy of Education Policy around the World", Cambridge (MA): MIT Press, 2021.
Expert Council on Education (Aktionsrat Bildung), "Führung, Leitung, Governance: Verantwortung im Bildungssystem", Münster: Waxmann, 2021.
Working papers
Silvia Angerer, Jana Bolvashenkova, Daniela Glätzle-Rützler, Philipp Lergetporer, and Matthias Sutter, "Children's Patience and School-Track Choices Several Years Later: Linking Experimental and Field Data", IZA Discussion Paper 14401, May 2021.
René Böheim and Sarah Gust, "The Austrian Pay Transparency Law and the Gender Wage Gap", CESifo Working Paper 8960, March 2021.
Further articles
Advisory Council at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, "Digitalisierung in Deutschland – Lehren aus der Corona-Krise", Berlin: BMWi, 2021.
Sascha O. Becker, Lukas Mergele, and Ludger Woessmann, "Es liegt nicht alles am Sozialismus – über Ost-West-Unterschiede und ihre Ursprünge", Wirtschaftsdienst 101 (conference issue): 32-36, 2021.
Sascha O. Becker, Jared Rubin, and Ludger Woessmann, "Religion in Economic History: A Survey", in: Alberto Bisin and Giovanni Federico (eds.), The Handbook of Historical Economics, Academic Press: 585-639, 2021.
René Böheim and Sarah Gust, "Das österreichische Einkommenstransparenz-Gesetz konnte die Lohndiskriminierung nicht reduzieren", Ökonomenstimme, 26.04.2021.
Ludger Woessmann, Vera Freundl, Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer, Katharina Werner, and Larissa Zierow, "Bildung erneut im Lockdown: Wie verbrachten Schulkinder die Schulschließungen Anfang 2021?", ifo Schnelldienst 74(5), 36-52, 2021.
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