Lifting Barriers to Skill Transferability: Immigrant Integration through Occupational Recognition with Silke Anger and Jacopo Bassetto (IZA DP: 17444, RFB/CReAM DP 27/24), revise & resubmit: American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

While Western countries worry about labor shortages, their institutional barriers to skill transferability prevent immigrants from fully utilizing foreign qualifications. Combining administrative and survey data in a difference-in-differences design, we show that a German reform, which lifted these barriers for non-EU immigrants, led to a 15 percent increase in the share of immigrants with a recognized foreign qualification. Consequently, non-EU immigrants’ employment and wages in licensed occupations (e.g., doctors) increased respectively by 18.6 and 4 percent, narrowing the gaps with EU immigrants. Despite the inflow of non-EU immigrants in these occupations, we find no evidence of crowding out or downward wage pressure for natives.

A Library in the Palm of your Hand? Inequalities in Reading Literacy and Educational Attainment with Silke Anger, Bernhard Christoph, Agata Galkiewicz, Shushanik Margaryan, Frauke Peter, Thomas Siedler AEA RCT Registry AEARCTR-0008561 (IZA DP: 17322)

Reading skills are crucial for academic success and long-term educational attainment. However, children from disadvantaged backgrounds often read less compared to their more privileged peers. This study assesses the impact of a randomized reading intervention conducted in Germany targeting 11–12-year-olds from disadvantaged households. This intervention involved distributing e-book readers, which provided free access to a large digital library of age-appropriate books directly to the children’s homes. Our results show that the intervention led to increases reading engagement among the children, which in turn improves their academic performance, particularly in reading comprehension and mathematics. Additionally, we observe positive effects on the socio-emotional well-being of the participants.

Coworker Networks from Student Jobs: A Flying Start at Labor Market Entry? with Gökay Demir, Friederike Hertweck, Ipek Yükselen (IZA DP: 17541)

This paper analyzes the impact of college students’ coworker networks formed during student jobs on their labor market outcomes after graduation. For our analysis, we use novel data that links students’ administrative university records with their pre- and postgraduation employment registry data and their coworker networks. Our empirical strategy exploits variation in the timing and duration of student jobs, controlling for a variety of individual and network characteristics, as well as firm-by-occupation fixed effects, eliminating potential selection bias arising from non-random entry into student jobs and networks. The results show that students who work alongside higher-earning coworkers during their student jobs earn higher wages in their first post-graduation employment. Two key mechanisms appear to drive this effect: (1) sorting into higher-paying firms after graduation, facilitated by coworker referrals, and (2) enhanced field-specific human capital through exposure to skilled colleagues. However, the initial wage advantage from higherearning coworker networks diminishes over time as students with worse networks catch up. Our findings contribute to the understanding of how early career networks shape labor market outcomes and facilitate a smoother transition from higher education to graduate employment.

Online Tutoring, School Performance, and School-to-Work Transitions: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial with Silke Anger, Bernhard Christoph, Agata Galkiewicz, Shushanik Margaryan, Thomas Siedler AEA RCT Registry AEARCTR-0008937, revise & resubmit: European Economic Review

Tutoring programs for low-performing students, whether in-person or online, appear to be effective in enhancing students’ school performance. However, their mediumand longer-term effects on labor market outcomes are less well understood. To address this gap, this study uses a randomized controlled trial involving 839 secondary school students to investigate the effects of an online tutoring program for lowperforming students in Germany on school performance and school-to-work transitions. The findings reveal that the online tutoring program had an intention-to-treat effect on math grades of 0.14 standard deviation observed six months after the start of the program. Additionally, we find that students attending non-academic school tracks experienced smoother school-to-work transitions through a 12 pp. higher vocational training take-up 18 months later. The tutoring program is less effective for students who had already received tutoring services at baseline. The results show that tutoring can have lasting effects on low-performing students beyond school performance.

Pathways to Immigrant Economic Integration with Jacopo Bassetto, Gordon Dahl, and Helmut Rainer

Helping High-School Students in Choosing their Career: Experimental Evidence from a Large-Scale School Policy with Silke Anger, Sarah Bernhard, Hans Dietrich, Adrian Lerche, Alexander Patzina, Carina Toussaint  AEA RCT Registry AEARCTR-0004587