Most research on the relationship between teacher characteristics and pupil achievement focuses on salaries, experience, and education. The effect of in‐service training has received less attention. We estimate the effect of in‐service teacher training on achievement in Jerusalem elementary schools using a matched‐comparison design. Differences‐in‐differences, regression, and matching estimates suggest training in secular schools led to an improvement in test scores. The estimates for religious schools are not clear cut, perhaps because training in religious schools started later and was implemented on a smaller scale. Estimates for secular schools suggest teacher training provided a cost‐effective means of increasing test scores.

Until 1983, the language of instruction for most subjects in grades 6 and above in Moroccan public schools was French. Beginning in 1983, the language of instruction for new cohorts of Moroccan sixth graders was switched to Arabic. We use this policy change to estimate the effect of French language skills on test scores and earnings. The estimates suggest that the elimination of compulsory French instruction led to a substantial reduction in the returns to schooling for Moroccans affected by the change. This reduction appears to be largely attributable to a loss of French writing skills.

We study the impact of financial incentives on higher education decisions and the choice of major. We rely on a reform whereby Israeli kibbutzim shifted from their traditional policy of equal sharing to productivity-based wages, using for identification the staggered implementation of this reform. In this setting of very low initial returns to education, we find that the dramatic increase in the rate of return and its sharp variation across fields of study led to a large increase in the probability of receiving a bachelor’s degree, especially in STEM fields of study that are expected to yield higher financial returns.

We analyze the long-term effects of a high school remedial education program almost two decades after its implementation. Treated students experienced an 11% increase in completed years of postsecondary schooling, a 4% increase in annual earnings, and a significant increase in intergenerational income mobility. These gains reflect improvement of students mainly from below-median-income families. We conclude that the program had gains beyond the short-term significant improvements in high school matriculation exams. A cost-benefit analysis of the program suggests that the government will recover its cost within 7–8 years, implying a very high rate of return.

We study ability peer effects in English secondary schools using data on four cohorts of students taking age-14 national tests and measuring peers’ ability by prior achievements at age 11. Our identification is based on within-pupil regressions exploiting variation in achievements across three compulsory subjects tested at age 14 and age 11. Using this novel strategy, we find significant and sizable negative effects arising from bad peers at the bottom of the ability distribution but little evidence that average peer quality and good peers matter. However, these results are heterogeneous, with girls benefiting from academically bright peers and boys not.

This article presents evidence on the child-quantity/child-quality trade-off using quasi-experimental variation due to twin births and preferences for a mixed sibling sex composition, as well as ethnic differences in the effects of these variables. Our sample includes groups with very high fertility. An innovation in our econometric approach is the juxtaposition of results from multiple instrumental variables strategies, capturing the effects of fertility over different ranges for different sorts of people. To increase precision, we develop an estimator that combines different instrument sets across partially overlapping parity-specific subsamples. Our results are remarkably consistent in showing no evidence of a quantity-quality trade-off.