Knowledge that Transforms

We evaluate the effects of the school system on mathematical, verbal, and logical reasoning skills using data from the Finnish comprehensive school reform that abolished the two-track school system. We use a difference-in-differences approach that exploits the gradual implementation across the country. Cognitive skills are measured using test scores from the Finnish Army Basic Skills Test. The reform had small positive effects on verbal test scores but no effect on the mean performance in the arithmetic or logical reasoning tests. However, the reform significantly improved the scores of the students whose parents had less than a high school education.

This article uses a game-theoretic, two-sided matching model and method of simulated moments estimation to study factors affecting the match of elementary teachers to their first jobs. We find that employers demonstrate preferences for teachers having stronger academic achievement (e.g., attended a more selective college) and for teachers living in closer proximity to the school. Teachers show preferences for schools that are closer geographically, are suburban, have a smaller proportion of students in poverty, and, for white teachers, have a smaller proportion of minority students. These results appear predictable but contradict findings from prior research estimating hedonic wage equations for teacher labor markets.

Teenage peers are perceived as being important, but there is little conclusive evidence demonstrating this. This paper uses data on the population of Norway and idiosyncratic variation in cohort composition within schools to examine the role of peer composition in ninth grade on longer-run outcomes such as IQ scores, teenage childbearing, education, and labor market outcomes. We find that outcomes are influenced by the proportion of females in the grade, and these effects differ by gender. Average age and average mother’s education of peers have little impact on teenagers but average father’s earnings of peers matters for boys.

Using data for students undertaking a series of real-world academic examinations with high future payoffs, we examine whether the differences in these evaluations’ competitive nature generate a performance gender gap. In the univariate setting we find that women’s performance is first-order stochastically dominated by that of men when the competition is higher, whereas the reverse holds true in the less competitive or noncompetitive tests. These results are confirmed in the multivariate setting. Our findings, from a real-world setting with important payoffs at stake, are in line with the evidence from experimental research that finds that females tend to perform worse in more competitive contexts.

As global policy makers and school leaders look for ways to improve student performance, financial incentives programs for teachers have become increasingly popular. This article describes a school-based randomized trial in over 200 New York City public schools designed to better understand the impact of teacher incentives. I find no evidence that teacher incentives increase student performance, attendance, or graduation, nor do I find evidence that these incentives change student or teacher behavior. If anything, teacher incentives may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools. The article concludes with a speculative discussion of theories to explain these stark results.

We assess whether ethnic minority pupils are subject to low teacher expectations. We exploit the English testing system of "quasi-blind" externally marked tests and "nonblind" internal assessment to compare differences in these assessment methods between white and ethnic minority pupils. We find evidence that some ethnic groups are systematically underassessed relative to their white peers, while some are overassessed. We propose a stereotype model in which a teacher's local experience of an ethnic group affects assessment of current pupils; this is supported by the data.

This article presents the first experimental evidence on the effects of live versus Internet media of instruction. Students in a large introductory microeconomics course at a major research university were randomly assigned to live lectures versus watching these same lectures in an Internet setting where all other factors (e.g., instruction, supplemental materials) were the same. We find modest evidence that live-only instruction dominates Internet instruction. These results are particularly strong for Hispanic students, male students, and lower-achieving students. We also provide suggestions for future experimentation in other settings.

This study examines occupational licensing in the United States using a specially designed national labor force survey. Estimates from the survey indicated that 35% of employees were either licensed or certified by the government and that 29% were licensed. Another 3% stated that all who worked in their job would eventually be required to be certified or licensed, bringing the total that are or eventually must be licensed or certified by government to 38%. We find that licensing is associated with about 18% higher wages but that the effect of governmental certification on pay is much smaller.

We analyze the impact of classroom peers' ability (measured by their individual fixed effects) on student achievement for all Florida public school students in grades 3-10 over a 6-year period. We control for both student and teacher fixed effects, thereby alleviating biases due to endogenous assignment of both peers and teachers. Under linear-in-means specifications, estimated peer effects are small to nonexistent, but we find some sizable and significant peer effects within nonlinear models. We also find that classroom peers, as compared with the broader group of grade-level peers at the same school, exert a greater influence on individual achievement gains.

Using original, representative survey data, we document that analytical, routine, and manual job tasks can be measured with high validity, vary substantially within and between occupations, are significantly related to workers' characteristics, and are robustly predictive of wage differences between occupations and among workers in the same occupation. We offer a conceptual framework that makes explicit the causal links between human capital endowments, occupational assignment, job tasks, and wages, which motivate a Roy model of the allocation of workers to occupations. We offer two simple tests of the model's gross predictions for the relationship between tasks and wages, both of which receive qualified empirical support.