Dr. Ingo E. Isphording

About me

I am an applied economist researching the origins and mechanisms of educational and labor market inequality. I am currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods and previously served as Research Director at the IZA – Institute of Labor Economics. I am affiliated with CESifo, GLO, and the CRC TR 224 “Economic Perspectives on Societal Challenges,” and I am a member of the Research Committee on Economics of Education of the German Economic Association as well as an Executive Committee Member of the European Association of Labor Economists (EALE).

Contact

Email: ingo.isphording(at)posteo.de

BlueSky: ingoisphording.bsky.social

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ingo-e-isphording-659081ba/

https://www.coll.mpg.de/isphording.html

Publications in refereed journals

Profit Taxation, R&D Spending, and Innovation, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Vol. 17, No. 1, February 2025, with Andreas Lichter, Max Löffler, Thu-Van Nguyen, Felix Pöge and Sebastian Siegloch.

VOX EU Column

Labour Market Shocks and Parental Investments during the Covid-19 Pandemic, Labour Economics, Volume 82, June 2023, 102341, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2023.102341, with Claudia Hupkau, Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela and Stephen Machin

Schools under Mandatory Testing Can Mitigate the Spread of SARS-CoV-2, Proceedings of the (PNAS) 119 (26) , July 2022, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2201724119, with Marc Diederichs, Reyn van Ewijk and Nico Pestel,

For a German summary see IZA Standpunkt 101

Media coverage in Welt and Focus

Achievement Rank Affects Performance and Major Choices in College, The Economic Journal, Volume 131, Issue 640, November 2021, Pages 3182–3206, https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueab034, with Benjamin Elsner and Ulf Zoelitz,

School Re-Openings after Summer Breaks in Germany Did Not Increase SARS-CoV-2 Cases, Journal of Public Economics, Volume 198, June 2021, 104426, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104426, with Marc Lipfert and Nico Pestel

Media coverage in Financial Times: Schools play limited role in spread of Covid-19, studies signal
Media coverage in Süddeutsche Zeitung: Pandemietreiber Schule?
Media coverage in BR: Sind Schulen Treiber der Corona-Pandemie?
Media coverage in SWR: Schulen: Hotspots von Neuinfektionen während der Corona-Pandemie?

Pandemic meets Pollution: Poor Air Quality increases Deaths by COVID-19, joint with Nico Pestel, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Volume 108, July 2021, 102448, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2021.102448

Minority Salience and Political Extremism, joint with Tommaso Colussi and Nico Pestel, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, vol. 13, no. 3, July 2021, pp. 237-71, https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20190703

Peer Diversity, College Performance and Educational Choices, Labour Economics, Volume 64, June 2020, with Arnaud Chevalier and Elena Lisauskaite

Rank, Sex, Drugs, and Crime, Journal of Human Resources, Volume 53, Number 2, Spring 2018, pp. 356-381, joint work with Ben Elsner

- - Media coverage in The Boston Globe: Uncommon Knowledge: Freaks and geeks, and beyond
  - Media coverage in the BBC: Why it pays to be a big fish in a small pond
  - Media coverage in Bloomberg Opinion

A Big Fish in a Small Pond: Ability Rank and Human Capital Investment, Journal of Labor Economics, Volume 35, Number 3, July 2017, pp. 787–828, with Ben Elsner

- Media coverage in the BBC: Why it pays to be a big fish in a small pond
- Media coverage in Bloomberg Opinion

Language Barriers and Immigrant Health, Health Economics, Volume 26, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 765–778, joint work with Andrew Clarke

Speaking in Numbers: The Effect of Reading Performance on Math Performance among Immigrants, Economics Letters, Volume 139, February 2016, pp. 52-56, with Marc Piopiunik and Núria Rodríguez-Planas

Linguistic barriers in the destination language acquisition of immigrants, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Volume 105, September 2014, Pages 30–50, with Sebastian Otten

Disadvantages of Linguistic Origin - Evidence from Immigrant Literacy Scores, Economics Letters, Vol. 123, pp. 236-239, 2014

- - - Media coverage in The Atlantic: Language Distance: The Reason Immigrants Have Trouble Assimilating

The Costs of Babylon – Linguistic Distance in Applied Economics, Review of International Economics, Vol. 21, Issue 2, pp. 354-369, 2013, with Sebastian Otten

Returns to Foreign Language Skills of Immigrants in Spain, LABOUR, Vol. 27, Issue 4, pp. 443-461, 2013

Working papers

The Value of a Peer, with Ulf Zölitz, reject & resubmit at Journal of Political Economy

This paper introduces peer value-added, a new approach to quantify the total contribution of an individual peer to student performance. Peer value-added captures social spillovers irrespective of whether they are generated by observable or unobservable peer characteristics. Using data with repeated random assignment to university sections, we find that students significantly differ in their peer value-added. Peer value-added is a good out-of-sample predictor of performance spillovers in newly-assigned student-peer pairs. Nonetheless, students’ own past performance and other observable characteristics are poor predictors of peer value-added. Peer value-added increases after exposure to better peers and valuable peers are substitutes for low-quality teachers.

On the Extent, Correlates, and Consequences of Reporting Bias in Survey Wages, with Marco Caliendo, Katrin Huber and Jakob Wegmann, revise & resubmit at Journal of Labor Economics

Surveys are an indispensable source of data for applied economic research; however, their reliance on self-reported information can introduce bias, especially if core variables such as personal income are misreported. To assess the extent and impact of this misreporting bias, we compare self-reported wages from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) with administrative wages from social security records (IEB) for the same individuals. Using a novel and unique data linkage (SOEP-ADIAB), we identify a modest but economically significant reporting bias, with SOEP respondents underreporting their administrative wages by about 7.3%. This misreporting varies systematically with individual, household, and especially job and firm characteristics. In replicating common empirical analyses in which wages serve as either dependent or independent variables, we find that misreporting is consequential for some, but not all estimated relationships. It turns out to be inconsequential for examining the returns to education, but relevant for analyzing the gender wage gap. In addition, we find that misreporting bias can significantly affect the results when wage is used as the independent variable. Specifically, estimates of the wage-satisfaction relationship are substantially overestimated when based on survey data, although this bias is mitigated when focusing on interpersonal changes. Our findings underscore that survey-based measures of individual wages can significantly bias commonly estimated empirical relationships. They also demonstrate the enormous research potential of linked administrative-survey data.

Feedback, Confidence and Job Search Behavior, with Lukas Hensel, Jonas Radbruch, Marc Witte and Tsegay Tekleselassie, submitted, pre-registered at AEA RCT registry (AEARCTR-0009698)

Job seekers face uncertainty about their abilities, and whether these match with job requirements. Such uncertainty may result in sub-optimal job search outcomes and job matches. We conduct a field experiment among job seekers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Participants underwent a skill assessment and were asked about their willingness to pay (WTP) for information about their relative performance on a test of general intelligence. WTP is positive for about 80 percent of the population, and is associated with gender and personality. Feedback provision leads individuals to update their beliefs which only persists for individuals with low WTP. We provide evidence that suggests imperfect recall as potential mechanism for the lack of persistence. Feedback increases job search intensity but relatively lower for initially overconfident individuals and those with negative or zero WTP, which results in lower realized wages for these groups. The heterogeneity in belief updating, recall and job search behavior is consistent with some overconfident job seekers being unable to forget information and, thus, to maintain motivated beliefs, but being sophisticated about this inability to forget.

Ongoing projects

Adoption and Effectiveness of AI Tutoring in Tertiary Education, joint with Henning Hermes, pre-registered at AEA RCT registry (AEARCTR-0014959)

Sexual Harassment in German Firms, joint with Jonas Jessen and Valentina Götz, pre-registered at AEA RCT registry (AEARCTR- 0015274)

Schools and Teacher Mental Health, joint with Antonia Entorf and Miriam Gensowski

Changing Work Climate: The Implications of Extreme Temperatures for Occupational Choice, joint with Nico Pestel, Harald Pfeiffer and Marc Witte

Productivity Spillovers in International Teams: Insights from GitHub Activity Data, joint with Felix Holub and Beate Thies

Media coverage and outreach

„Der Zufall ist der Karrierefaktor überhaupt“, Podcast "Hypothese" der Universität Bonn, 05.06.2025

„Bildungspolitik ist Arbeitsmarktpolitik“, Zeitgespräch im Wirtschaftsdienst, 104. Jahrgang, 2024 · Heft 8 · S. 524–526

„ Bildungsdaten: Datenlücken durch ein Bildungsverlaufsregister schließen“, Zeitgespräch im Wirtschaftsdienst, 103. Jahrgang, 2023 · Heft 11 · S. 733–736

„KI im Job“, 13.09.2023, article in Handelsblatt

„ ChatGPT: Revolutionär oder Teufelszeug? “, 31.01.2023, podcast at RBB

„Rennt der Bildungssektor der Künstlichen Intelligenz hinterher?“, 31.01.2023, article at MDR

„Die Datenlage ist ein Flickenteppich“, 29.10.2022, article in Table.Bildung, a German expert briefing on educational policy

„Warum es für eine neue Sprache nie zu spät ist“, 10.09.2022, article in Spektrum der Wissenschaft

"Schulen können ein sicherer Ort sein", 17.11.2021, article in German newspaper "Die Welt". Online behind paywall, beware the clickbait title

"Covid se ve školách nešíří, ukazuje německý výzkum. Kariéry žáků může jejich uzavření ovlivnit na celý život". Interview with Czech daily newspaper Hospodářské noviny (Czech economic daily). Here are my original answers in English.

"Pandemie-Treiber Schule?", 13.10.2020, article in German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on our study on school re-openings and the spread of the corona virus. Additional coverage at Financial Times, BR24 and WAZ, radio interviews with MDR and SWR (in German)

Die Corona-Digitalisierung", 28.04.2020, Interview with German magazine Audimax on the digitization in tertiary education in the wake of the Corona crisis

"Gib zu, du hattest Glück", 14.8.2020, article in German print magazine Wirtschaftswoche on the role of luck in careers

"Ist Karriere Glücksache?", 13.08.2020, again Wirtschaftswoche on the role of luck in careers (behind paywall, ask me for an ungated version)

"Warum viele Karrieren bereits in der ersten Klasse beginnen", 16.08.2020, online article in German magazine Wirtschaftswoche on the role of early peers on individual life trajectories

"Uncommon Knowledge: Freaks and geeks, and beyond", 27.04.2018, Boston Globe, on the role of relative intelligence in affecting youth risky behavior

"Why You Should Pick a Weaker School for Your Kid", 04.09.2018, a misinterpretation of our rank results in Bloomberg Opinion

"Why it pays to be a big fish in a small pond", 05.07.2018, BBC Capital on the role of rank and relative ability in school determining longer-term life outcomes (no longer online, archived version)

"Language Distance: The Reason Immigrants Have Trouble Assimilating", 07.05.2013, The Atlantic on the role of language differences affecting immigrant's assimilation

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