Subject-specific qualifications of teachers important in science
How do teachers' subject-specific qualifications affect students' science achievement? Pietro Sancassani from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education answers this question in his paper recently published in the journal Labour Economics. He uses data from the international achievement test TIMSS 2015 in biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science. The results show that students learn more if their teacher has a qualification in the respective subject. Part of the effect can be attributed to the fact that teachers with a subject-specific qualification feel more confident to teach the topics. more…
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Children's patience predicts their school-track choices
Children's patience predicts their later choice of an academic school track. This is the finding of a paper recently published in the Journal of Public Economics by Philipp Lergetporer from TU Munich, which he devised during his time at the ifo Center for the Economics of Education. It was performed with Silvia Angerer from UMIT Tirol, Jana Bolvashenkova, Daniela Glätzle-Rützler from the University of Innsbruck, and Matthias Sutter from the Max Planck Institute for Research into Collective Goods. The authors combine an incentivized patience measure of about 500 primary-school children with their high-school track choices taken three years later. Accounting for middle-school GPA suggests a direct link between patience and school-track choice. more...
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Grade retention leads to losses on the labor market
Grade retention offers students a chance to catch up with unmastered material. But it also leads to reduced labor-market experience by delaying graduation and labor-market entry. In his new CESifo Working Paper, Simon ter Meulen from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education quantifies this trade-off. He uses an exit exam cutoff of Dutch academic secondary schools where failing implies repeating the final grade. Results show no effects of grade retention on final educational attainment. However, at age 28 retained students earn 3000 Euro (8.5%) less per year due to their reduced labor-market experience. more…
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Low-achieving peers hold back immigrant students
In their new ifo Working Paper, Caterina Pavese from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education and Elena Meschi from the University of Milano-Bicocca investigate whether the ability of peers influences the educational achievement of immigrant students. Using longitudinal data from the Italian INVALSI study, the researchers find that the achievement of immigrant students suffers if the fraction of very low achievers in the classroom is high. more…
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Transparency about student achievement increases political incentives
Both German citizens and state parliamentarians misperceive the achievement levels of students in their respective state. Katharina Werner from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, Sebastian Blesse from the ifo Center for Social Market Economy and Institutional Economics, Philipp Lergetporer from TU Munich, and Justus Nover from ZEW Mannheim document this finding in parallel surveys with both groups. Providing performance information increases citizens' political satisfaction in high-performing states and reduces it in low-performing states. It also increases citizens' demand for greater transparency about student performance of the federal states. Among parliamentarians, the information increases support for the transparency policy only in high-performing states but decreases it in low-performing states. more…
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Childcare access boosts mothers' labor-market participation
Enabling access to early childcare for disadvantaged families increases maternal labor supply. This is what Philipp Lergetporer from TU Munich finds in a new study that he mainly performed during his time at the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, together with Henning Hermes from HHU Düsseldorf, Marina Krauß from the University of Augsburg, Frauke Peter from DZHW Berlin, and Simon Wiederhold from KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. Their intervention provides families with customized help for childcare applications, which results in a large increase in enrollment among disadvantaged families. The treatment increases the full-time employment rate of disadvantaged mothers by 9 percentage points, their earnings by 22%, and household income by 10%. more...
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Volume 6 of Handbook of the Economics of Education published
The latest volume of the Handbook of the Economics of Education, edited by Ludger Woessmann from the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, Eric Hanushek from Stanford University, and Stephen Machin from the London School of Economics, contains seven chapters on the following topics: 1. investing in early childhood development, 2. teacher value added, 3. school choice, 4. returns to postsecondary education, 5. addressing non-financial barriers to college access and success, 6. educational inequality, and 7. conditional cash transfers. more...
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IN THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS
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Skills, schools and economic growth
In the podcast The Week That Was in Europe, Ludger Woessmann speaks with Klaus Adam and Dirk Schumacher about the relationship between education and economic growth.
The slowly-narrowing achievement gap
The Flypaper Blog of the Fordham Institute covers the work by Ludger Woessmann and co-authors on socioeconomic gaps in education in the United States.
Inequality of opportunities in education
In the podcast Nieuwe Economen, Simon ter Meulen talks about unequal opportunities in the education system and how they can be addressed.
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It is devastating that Germany moves at this pace
In an interview on wiwo.de on the German education summit, Ludger Woessmann explains why good education is not just a question of money.
The high-school diploma is worth less and less
In the run-up to the education summit, Bild am Sonntag quotes Ludger Woessmann on the second page about the signal effect of Abitur grades.
Education economist warns against devaluation of Abitur grades
Spiegel.de, zeit.de, welt.de, and numerous other media also quote Ludger Woessmann on performance requirements in the Abitur.
Calls for reform grow louder
BR24 Rundschau on BR television reports on Ludger Woessmann's presentation at the Teacher Education Day of the Bavarian Philologists' Association.
We should think about compulsory preschool
Ludger Woessmann in an interview on wiwo.de on integration through education.
Educational crisis in Germany
Wirtschaftswoche reports on a study by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education which shows that a quarter of students in Germany lack basic skills. Nordwest-Zeitung also writes about this.
Support for disadvantaged students
The Süddeutsche Zeitung describes the implementation of a mentoring program at lower-track schools in Bavaria and discusses the evaluation of the program by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education.
Losses due to poor student achievement
Ludger Woessmann is quoted on bild.de on the decline in student achievement in Germany.
No school due to teacher shortage
Welt quotes Vera Freundl on the relationship between instruction time and student achievement.
Good salaries, lots of options - the list of degree programs that are really worth it
Welt cites the ifo study that calculates returns to education, for example, lifetime income depending on academic degree in various subjects.
Here's how teacher shortage affects students in the region
An article on teacher shortages in the Lausitzer Rundschau quotes Ludger Woessmann on the central role of education for social prosperity.
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SELECTED EVENTS AND PRESENTATIONS
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Teacher Qualifications and Student Achievement: An Economic Impulse
At the Teacher Education Day of the Bavarian Philologists' Association on 22 February 2023 in Munich, Ludger Woessmann gave an education-economics impulse on the role of teacher qualifications for student achievement. A video of the presentation is available online.
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Announcement: CESifo Area Conference on Economics of Education 2023
On 1-2 September 2023, the CESifo Area Conference on Economics of Education will take place at the ifo Institute. Top scholars in the economics of education will present their latest research, including Eliana La Ferrara from the Harvard Kennedy School, who will give the keynote. more …
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Announcement: CESifo / ifo Junior Workshop on the Economics of Education
Young researchers in the field of economics of education will present their latest papers at the CESifo / ifo Junior Workshop on the Economics of Education on 26-27 April 2023. Barbara Biasi from Yale School of Management will give the keynote. more…
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YES! - Young Economic Solutions 2023: we participate
This year, the ifo Center for the Economics of Education will once again supervise a team of high-school students in the YES! competition. Together with ifo researchers, the students will develop solutions to current societal challenges - in our case, educational (in)equality in Germany - and present them to the public. more…
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Articles in refereed journals
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", Journal of Public Economics 220, 104837, 2023.
Pietro Sancassani, "The Effect Of Teacher Subject-Specific Qualifications on Student Science Achievement", Labour Economics 80, 102309, 2023.
Monographs
Eric A. Hanushek, Stephen Machin, and Ludger Woessmann (Eds.), "Handbook of the Economics of Education", Volume 6, North Holland, 2023.
Working Papers
Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer, Justus Nover, and Katharina Werner, "Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians", ifo Working Paper 390, 2023.
Henning Hermes, Marina Krauß, Philipp Lergetporer, Frauke Peter, and Simon Wiederhold, "Early Child Care and Labor Supply of Lower-SES Mothers: A Randomized Controlled Trial", CESifo Working Paper 10178, 2023.
Elena Meschi and Caterina Pavese, "Ability Composition in the Class and the School Performance of Immigrant Students", ifo Working Paper 388, 2023.
Simon ter Meulen, "Long-Term Effects of Grade Retention", CESifo Working Paper 10212, 2023.
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Raphael Brade joined the ifo Center for the Economics of Education as a Postdoc in January 2023. Welcome to the team!
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