Publications

Can Mentoring Alleviate Family Disadvantage in Adolescence? A Field Experiment to Improve Labor-Market Prospects (with Sven Resnjanskij, Jens Ruhose, Simon Wiederhold, Ludger Woessmann), Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming [Project website, AEA registry, CESifo Working Paper No. 8870, VoxEU, ifo Press Release]. 
Abstract: We study a mentoring program that aims to improve the labor-market prospects of school-attending adolescents from disadvantaged families by offering them a university-student mentor. Our RCT investigates program effectiveness on three outcome dimensions that are highly predictive of later labor-market success: math grades, patience/social skills, and labor-market orientation. For low-SES adolescents, the mentoring increases a combined index of the outcomes by over half a standard deviation after one year, with significant increases in each dimension. Part of the treatment effect is mediated by establishing mentors as attachment figures who provide guidance for the future. Effects on grades and labor-market orientation, but not on patience/social skills, persist three years after program start. By that time, the mentoring also improves early realizations of school-to-work transitions for low-SES adolescents. The mentoring is not effective for higher-SES adolescents. The results show that substituting lacking family support by other adults can help disadvantaged children at adolescent age.

The ifo Education Survey 2014 to 2021: A New Dataset On Public Preferences for Education Policy in Germany, Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 2022 (with Vera Freundl, Elisabeth Grewenig, Franziska Kugler, Philipp Lergetporer, Ruth Schüler, Katharina Werner, Olivia Wirth, and Ludger Woessmann) [ifo Working Paper No. 378 available here]

Abstract: The ifo Education Survey is a representative opinion survey of the German voting-age population on education topics that has been conducted annually since 2014. It covers public preferences on a wide range of education policy issues ranging from early childhood education, schools, and apprenticeships to university education and life-long learning. The dataset comprises several survey experiments that facilitate investigating the causal effects of information provision, framing, and question design on answering behavior. This paper gives an overview of the survey content and methodology, describes the data, and explains how researchers can access the dataset of over 4000 participants per wave. 

Instruction Time and Student Achievement: The Moderating Role of Teacher Qualifications, Economics of Education Review, 85, 102183, 2021. [ifo Working Paper available here, non-technical research report available here]. Media reports: ifo press release, Deutschlandfunk Nova, Bildungsklick, Orrizontescuola.it 

Abstract: Recent evidence suggests a positive effect of the quantity of instruction on student achievement. In this paper, I focus on the interaction between the quantity and the quality of instruction. Using international TIMSS data, I exploit within-student between-subject variation. I find that on average, an additional hour of instruction time leads to an increase of 0.03 standard deviations in students’ test scores across all countries. Importantly, these effects of instruction time are significantly larger for students with better qualified teachers, resulting in an increase in test scores of 0.04 to 0.05 standard deviations. While on average, instruction time has no significant effect in developing countries, it increases test scores by 0.02 standard deviations when taught by a high-qualified teacher also in developing countries.

Working Papers

Automatability of Occupations, Workers’ Labor-Market Expectations and Willingness to Train, CESifo Working Paper No. 10862 and IZA Discussion Paper No. 16687, 2023 (with Philipp Lergetporer and Katharina Werner)

Abstract: We study how beliefs about the automatability of workers’ occupation affect labor-market expectations and willingness to participate in further training. In our representative online survey, respondents on average underestimate the automation risk of their occupation, especially those in high-automatability occupations. Randomized information about their occupations’ automatability increases respondents’ concerns about their professional future, and expectations about future changes in their work environment. The information also increases willingness to participate in further training, especially among respondents in highly automatable occupation (+five percentage points). This uptick substantially narrows the gap in willingness to train between those in high- and low-automatability occupations. 

Work in Progress

Can Predicting Dropout in Social Programs Increase Program Returns? (with Sven Resnjanskij)

Luck or Effort: Perceptions of the Role of Circumstances in Education and Demand for Targeted Spending (with Elisabeth Grewenig and Katharina Werner)

Learning for Life: Understanding Obstacles to Workforce Training in German Firms (with Helena Baier, Miriam Bird and Philipp Lergetporer) 

Publications in Non-Refereed Journals

Resnjanskij, S., Ruhose, J., Wedel, K., Wiederhold, S., Woessmann, L. (2023) Mentoring erhöht die Ausbildungsbeteiligung benachteiligter Jugendlicher, ifo Schnelldienst, 2023, 76, Nr. 12, 03-27, ifo Institute Munich

Werner, K., Freundl, V., Kugler, F.,  Wedel, K., Woessmann, L. (2023) Was denken die Deutschen zu Chancenungleichheit im Bildungssystem?, ifo Schnelldienst, 2023, 76, Nr. 11, 33-39, ifo Institute Munich. Media reports (selected): Tagesschau, Bildungsklick

Werner, K., Freundl, V., Kugler, F.,  Wedel, K., Woessmann, L. (2023) Wie unterscheidet sich das Meinungsbild zu Schulen zwischen den deutschen Regionen? Regionale Ergebnisse des ifo Bildungsbarometers 2023, ifo Schnelldienst, 2023, 76, Nr. 10, 03-08, ifo Institute Munich. Media reports (selected): BR, Wirtschaftswoche, FAZ

Werner, K., Freundl, V., Kugler, F.,  Wedel, K., Woessmann, L. (2023) Was die Deutschen über die Qualität der Schulen denken – Ergebnisse des zehnten ifo Bildungsbarometers 2023. ifo Schnelldienst, 2023, 76, Nr. 09, 37-50, ifo Institute Munich. Media reports (selected): Handelsblatt, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Tagesschau

Freundl, V., Kugler, F., Wedel, K., Werner, K., Woessmann, L. (2022) Bildungspolitische Maßnahmen zur Integration der Geflüchteten aus der Ukraine - Was die Deutschen befürworten. ifo Schnelldienst, 2022, 75, Nr. 09, 70-74, ifo Institute Munich. Media reports (selected): ifo press release, Stern, taz

Werner, K., Freundl, V., Kugler, F., Lergetporer, P., Wedel, K., Woessmann, L. (2022) Deutsche befürworten Weiterbildung, um mit dem Strukturwandel Schritt zu halten: Ergebnisse des ifo Bildungsbarometers 2022. ifo Schnelldienst, 2022, 75, Nr. 09, 56-69, ifo Institute Munich. Media reports (selected): ifo press release, Handelsblatt, Spiegel, Deutschlandfunk 

Freundl, V., Wedel, K. (2022) How does Instruction Time Affect Student Achievement? The Moderating Role of Teacher Qualifications. CESifo Forum 03/2022, ifo Institute Munich.

Thoma, O., Wedel, K. (2016). Vorzeitig gelöste Ausbildungsverträge in der dualen Ausbildung in Baden-Württemberg im Jahr 2014. IAB-Regional. Berichte und Analysen aus dem Regionalen Forschungsnetz, IAB Baden-Württemberg, 01/2016, Nürnberg.

Thoma,  O., Wapler, R.,  and Wedel, K. (2016). Vergleichende Analyse von Länderarbeitsmärkten * Länderstudie Baden-Württemberg, IAB-Regional. Berichte und Analysen aus dem Regionalen Forschungsnetz, IAB Baden-Württemberg, 02/2016, Nürnberg.

Teaching Experience

Winter Term 2021/22: Seminar (Bachelor) "New Topics in Applied Econometrics: Machine Learning, Big Data, and Other Recent Developments" with Lukas Mergele and Sven Resnjanskij.

Summer Term 2021: Seminar (Bachelor) "Equality of Opportunity in Education" with Ludger Woesmann and Katharina Werner.

Winter Term 2020/21: Tutorial (Bachelor) in "Economics of Education" with Lukas Mergele and Katharina Werner.

Winter Term 2016/17: Tutorial (Bachelor) in "Quantitative Methoden der Wirtschaftswissenschaft" with Martin Biewen.

Conferences

2023: Royal Economic Society Annual Conference (Glasgow, UK), CESifo/ifo Junior Workshop on the Economics of Education (Munich, Germany), 14th Interdisciplinary PhD Workshop "Perspectives on (Un-)Employment" (Nuremberg, Germany), Technological Change and the Future of Work: Combining Disciplinary Approaches (CESifo Venice Summer Institute, Italy), EALE (Prague, Czech Republic), Verein für Socialpolitik (Regensburg, Germany)

2022: Economics of Education and Equality of Opportunity (CESifo Venice Summer Institute, Italy), EEA-ESEM Congress (Milan, Italy), Annual Congress of the IIPF (Linz, Austria), Political Economy Workshop Harvard University (USA), Labor, Development and Health Workshop University of Connecticut (USA)

2021: AEA-ASSA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting (US), Bavarian Young Economists' Meeting (Germany), 2nd International Workshop Machine Learning in Labor, Education, and Health Economics (Germany)

2020: EEA Virtual Congress (Netherlands),  76th Annual Congress of the IIPF (Iceland)