News 2022
December 2022
Talk on "Basic Right to Education" on ARD alpha
Millions of children worldwide do not achieve basic learning goals. I spoke about education as a human right and educational gaps in Germany and the world, their causes, consequences, and solutions in the half-hour show alpha-demokratie titled "Basic Right to Education" on ARD alpha on 6 December 2022.
VoxEU Column: A World Unprepared: Missing Skills for Development
A World Unprepared: Missing Skills for Development (with S. Gust and E.A. Hanushek). VoxEU.org, 5.12.2022
November 2022
Radio Interview on Global Education Gaps
Interview on BR24 Campusmagazin on 27.11.2022 on gaps in education worldwide (starts at minute 6:25):
Interview on Makronom on the Importance of Education for Prosperity
Der Wohlstand in Deutschland kann langfristig nur von der Ressource Mensch kommen. Makronom, 24.11.2022
Interview in Der Spiegel on Learning under Covid Conditions
Statt Schulen die Biergärten geöffnet. Der Spiegel, 47/2022, p. 19
October 2022
New WP: Global Universal Basic Skills: Current Deficits and Implications for World Development
How far is the world away from ensuring that every child obtains the basic skills needed to be internationally competitive? And what would accomplishing this mean for world development? Based on the micro data of international and regional achievement tests, we map achievement onto a common (PISA) scale. We then estimate the share of children not achieving basic skills for 159 countries that cover 98.1% of world population and 99.4% of world GDP. We find that at least two-thirds of the world’s youth do not reach basic skill levels, ranging from 24% in North America and the European Union to 89% in South Asia and 94% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our economic analysis suggests that the present value of lost world economic output due to missing the goal of global universal basic skills amounts to over $700 trillion over the remaining century, or 11% of discounted GDP.
Global Universal Basic Skills: Current Deficits and Implications for World Development (with S. Gust and E.A. Hanushek). NBER Working Paper 30566 / CESifo Working Paper 10029 / IZA Discussion Paper 15648, October 2022 [tweet]
A World Unprepared: Missing Skills for Development (with S. Gust and E.A. Hanushek). VoxEU.org, 5.12.2022
Contribution on Covid Consequences in Freie Bildung
Langfristige Folgen der Corona-Pandemie für die Bildung der Kinder. Freie Bildung 98: 21-22, 2022
Chapter Published in the International Handbook of Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education
Economic theory suggests that the skills of a society’s population are important determinants of economic growth. International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) have been used to put these theories to an empirical test. Our chapter in the International Handbook of Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education provides an overview of models of the role of educational achievement in macroeconomic outcomes and summarizes empirical economic work using ILSAs to measure relevant skills. In economic terms, the aggregate cognitive skills of the population as measured by ILSAs can be interpreted as the knowledge capital of nations. The chapter concludes that there is strong evidence that the cognitive skills of the population – rather than mere school attainment – are powerfully related to long-run economic growth.
The Political Economy of ILSAs in Education: The Role of Knowledge Capital in Economic Growth (with E.A. Hanushek). In: T. Nilsen, A. Stancel-Piątak, J.-E. Gustafsson (eds.), International Handbook of Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education, Cham: Springer, 27-53, 2022
Data Release: The ifo Education Survey 2014-2021, Described in JbNSt Article
We have just released the datasets of the first eight waves (2014-2021) of the ifo Education Survey (ifo Bildungsbarometer) for scientific use. 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. The following paper gives an overview of the survey content and methodology, describes the data, and explains how researchers can access the datasets of over 4,000 participants per wave:
The ifo Education Survey 2014-2021: A New Dataset on Public Preferences for Education Policy in Germany (with V. Freundl, E. Grewenig, F. Kugler, P. Lergetporer, R. Schüler, K. Wedel, K. Werner, and O. Wirth). Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik / Journal of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming [tweet]
Paper out in Education Finance and Policy
Long-run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap (with E.A. Hanushek, J.D. Light, P.E. Peterson, and L.M. Talpey). Education Finance and Policy 17 (4): 608-640, 2022 [tweet]
Interview in Die Welt: We Need a New PISA Shock
Wir brauchen einen neuen Pisa-Schock. welt.de, 3.10.2022
September 2022
New survey: Germans support integration of Ukrainian refugees through education
In a representative survey, we asked how Germans feel about the integration of refugees from Ukraine through education. A majority (58%) think that Ukrainian refugees should be integrated through education measures immediately, rather than waiting to see how the situation in Ukraine develops. Various integration measures for adults, such as the right and obligation to state-funded German language courses (74%) and a work permit for refugee teachers (66%), are supported by a majority. German opinion is split on compulsory preschool for refugee children. However, clear majorities are in favor of a quick integration of Ukrainian children into existing classes in primary (65%) and secondary schools (61%) as well as more state-funded school staff to take care of refugee children (66%). A comparison with a survey from 2016, when among others many Syrian refugees came to Germany, reveals some significant differences: While half of the respondents (50%) currently rate the educational level of the refugees as high, less than a quarter (22%) did so in 2016. A slight majority (52%) currently believe that the refugees are helping to reduce the shortage of skilled workers in Germany; in 2016, this was only one-third (33%). By contrast, the level of approval for many measures to integrate refugees is rather similar between 2016 and 2022.
Bildungspolitische Maßnahmen zur Integration der Geflüchteten aus der Ukraine – Was die Deutschen befürworten (with V. Freundl, F. Kugler, K. Wedel, and K. Werner). ifo Schnelldienst 75 (9): 70-74, 2022
Contribution in Der Pragmaticus on the Lessons from PISA
Nein, die PISA-Tests sind nicht egal. Der Pragmaticus, 4.9.2022
Paper on Belief Elicitation now out in the Journal of Econometrics
Does incentivization improve belief elicitation in large-scale surveys? A large literature studies subjective beliefs about economic facts using unincentivized survey questions. In a paper now out in the Journal of Econometrics, we devise randomized experiments in a representative online survey to investigate whether incentivizing belief accuracy affects stated beliefs about average earnings by professional degree and average public school spending. Incentive provision does not impact earnings beliefs, but improves school-spending beliefs. Response spikes suggest that the latter effect likely reflects increased online-search activity. Consistently, an experiment that just encourages search-engine usage produces very similar results. Overall, results suggest a trade-off between increased respondent effort and the risk of inducing online-search activity when incentivizing beliefs in online surveys.
Incentives, Search Engines, and the Elicitation of Subjective Beliefs: Evidence from Representative Online Survey Experiments (with E. Grewenig, P. Lergetporer, and K. Werner). Journal of Econometrics 231 (1): 304-326, 2022
CESifo Area Conference on the Economics of Education 2022
The program of the CESifo Area Conference on the Economics of Education 2022 is available online. Imran Rasul (University College London) gave the Jacobs Foundation Lecture. The winner of the CESifo Young Affiliate Award is Mikko Silliman (Harvard University).
August 2022
ifo Education Survey 2022: Germans favor lifelong learning to keep pace with structural change
With the use of new technologies, job profiles on the German labor market are changing continuously. For this reason, lifelong learning plays an essential role in ensuring that employees benefit from structural change and that companies can fill vacancies with suitable skilled workers. The ifo Education Survey 2022 surveyed more than 4,000 Germans about their views on lifelong learning, structural change, and the shortage of skilled workers. Nearly three-quarters of Germans (72%) believe that lifelong learning is a good way to keep pace with structural change. 54% believe that there are more losers than winners as a result of structural change. However, only 27% see themselves on the losing side of structural change. Accordingly, 62% of Germans see an increasing need for lifelong learning for all employees, but only 48% for people in their own profession. Three quarters of Germans (77%) are in favor of a legal right to continuing education from a catalog of offerings presented by companies. Three quarters (76%) are also in favor of introducing a lifelong learning system with uniform certificates and comparable final examinations similar to those in the apprenticeship system. 63% are in favor of mandatory annual continuing education in occupations that are particularly affected by structural change. 64% are in favor of additional information campaigns by the state on the subject of lifelong learning. Overall, the German population shows a high willingness to reform to counter digital change with the help of lifelong learning.
Deutsche befürworten Weiterbildung, um mit dem Strukturwandel Schritt zu halten – Ergebnisse des ifo Bildungsbarometers 2022 (with V. Freundl, F. Kugler, P. Lergetporer, K. Wedel, and K. Werner). ifo Schnelldienst 75 (9): 56-69, 2022
Economic Journal Paper Assigned to Issue
Patience, Risk-Taking, and Human Capital Investment across Countries (with E.A. Hanushek, L. Kinne, and P. Lergetporer). Economic Journal 132 (646): 2290-2307, 2022 [tweet]
July 2022
Long-run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap: Paper Accepted for Publication in Education Finance and Policy
Rising inequality in the United States has raised concerns about potentially widening gaps in educational achievement by socio-economic status (SES). Using assessments from LTT-NAEP, Main-NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA that are psychometrically linked over time, we trace trends in SES gaps in achievement for U.S. student cohorts born between 1961 and 2001. Gaps in math, reading, and science achievement between the top and bottom quartiles of the SES distribution have closed by 0.05 standard deviations per decade over this period. At the current pace of closure, the achievement gap would not be eliminated until the second half of the 22nd Century.
Long-run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap (with E.A. Hanushek, J.D. Light, P.E. Peterson, and L.M. Talpey). Education Finance and Policy, forthcoming
June 2022
May 2022
Interview on Creeping Performance Decline and Covid Learning Deficits in campus schulmanagement
Schulleistungen im Sinkflug. campus schulmanagement, 30.5.2022
EffEE Conference on Econometric Evaluation of School Reforms
On 20-21 May 2022, we hosted a conference on "Econometric Evaluation of School Reforms" at the ifo Institute in Munich. With a terrific program and ample room for discussion, participants enjoyed being back together for scientific exchange. The keynote lecture was given by Nobel Laureate Joshua Angrist (MIT), and additional invited speakers from the international network of the EffEE project included Susanna Loeb (Brown), Victor Lavy (Warwick and Jerusalem), Helena Skyt Nielsen (Aarhus), and Edwin Leuven (Oslo). The conference was jointly hosted by the ifo Center for the Economics of Education and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center as part of the project "Efficiency and Equity in Education: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from School Reforms across German States (EffEE)" funded by the competitive procedure of the Leibniz Association.
Article on Deferred Income-Contingent Tuition Fees in the Blog "The Economic View" of NOeG and Die Presse
Fürs Studium bezahlen? Aber richtig! (with P. Lergetporer). NOeG-Blog "Der ökonomische Blick" auf diepresse.com, 23.5.2022
April 2022
The Basic Skills Gap: New Contribution to IMF's Finance & Development magazine
Meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is impossible without global universal basic skills - which, sadly, is still a faraway goal. Economic development depends on the skills of each society, which means that high-quality, equitable education is paramount. On this score, it is hard to be optimistic, because the deficits are large, and recent events have not improved the chances for success. Based on the available evidence, we highlight three key issues: (1) Skill differences account for three-quarters of cross-country variations in long-term growth. (2) The global skill deficit is immense, as two-thirds or more of the world’s youth do not reach even basic skill levels. (3) Accordingly, reaching the goal of global universal basic skills would raise future world GDP by $700 trillion over the remainder of the century.
The Basic Skills Gap (with E.A. Hanushek). Finance & Development 59 (2): 50-53, 2022
The Future of Work in the Digital Transformation: New Report by Advisory Council at Economics Ministry
The digital transformation poses major challenges for the German labor market. In particular, mismatch - i.e., the coexistence of a shortage of skilled workers and unemployment - is to be expected because of an intensified discrepancy between the skill profiles supplied and demanded on the labor market. To counter this, a comprehensive reform of continuing training is needed. To facilitate retraining for a change of occupation across sectors, a continuing education system based on the dual training system should be established. Such a system for lifelong learning would enable people to obtain new educational certificates with strong signals even at an advanced age. To promote widespread in-company continuing education, the sometimes confusing subsidy system should be simplified and a legal right to continuing education should be examined. Germany also needs to start a catch-up process to regain connection to the world leaders in key digital technologies.
Die Zukunft der Arbeit in der digitalen Transformation. Gutachten des Wissenschaftlichen Beirats beim Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz. Berlin: BMWi, 2022
Education and Resilience: New Report of the Expert Council on Education
The Covid-19 pandemic revealed that the education system is only very partially prepared for crises. Resilience is the ability not only to recover in the face of disruptive or continuous stressors, but to grow from them. Which reforms can effectively help achieve good educational outcomes even in times of crisis? Based on an empirically validated stocktaking, the Expert Council on Education derives recommendations for action for resilient individuals and a resilient education system for the different phases of education.
Bildung und Resilienz. Gutachten des Aktionsrats Bildung. Münster: Waxmann, 2022
How Do Ethnic Enclaves Affect Immigrant Children's Language Proficiency? Paper Published in Journal of Population Economics
Does the regional concentration of immigrants of the same ethnicity affect immigrant children’s acquisition of host-country language skills and educational attainment? We exploit the concentration of five ethnic groups in 1985 emanating from the exogenous placement of guest workers across German regions during the 1960s and 1970s. Results from a model with region and ethnicity fixed effects indicate that exposure to a higher own-ethnic concentration impairs immigrant children’s host-country language proficiency and increases school dropout. A key mediating factor for the detrimental language effect is parents’ lower speaking proficiency in the host-country language, whereas inter-ethnic contacts with natives and economic conditions do not play a role in language proficiency or educational attainment.
Growing up in Ethnic Enclaves: Language Proficiency and Educational Attainment of Immigrant Children (with A.M. Danzer, C. Feuerbaum, and M. Piopiunik). Journal of Population Economics 35 (3): 1297-1344, 2022 [tweet]
March 2022
Podcast "Economy Explained Simply" by Orange by Handelsblatt
Podcast on the topic of "College or apprenticeship - what is most worthwhile for you financially" on 31 March 2022:
Commentary on IZA World of Labor: Children’s Skill Development Is a Persistent Casualty of Covid-19
A Persistent Casualty of Covid-19: Children’s Skill Development. IZA World of Labor, Commentary, 21.3.2022
Podcast on VoxTalks Economics: Do Schools Change our Religious Attitudes?
Do Schools Change our Religious Attitudes? (with B. Arold and L. Zierow, interviewed by T. Phillips). VoxTalks Economics Podcast S5 Ep12, 18.3.2022
Contribution on VoxEU: Religious Education in School Affects Students’ Lives in the Long Run
Religious Education in School Affects Students’ Lives in the Long Run (with B. Arold and L. Zierow). VoxEU.org, 3.3.2022
January 2022
New Working Paper: Making Tuition Contingent on Future Income Raises Public Support
We show that the electorate’s preferences for using tuition to finance higher education strongly depend on the design of the payment scheme. In representative surveys of the German electorate (N>18,000), experimentally replacing regular upfront by deferred income-contingent payments increases public support for tuition by 18 percentage points. The treatment turns a plurality opposed to tuition into a strong majority of 62 percent in favor. Additional experiments reveal that the treatment effect similarly shows when framed as loan repayments, when answers carry political consequences, and in a survey of adolescents. Reduced fairness concerns and improved student situations act as strong mechanisms.
Income Contingency and the Electorate’s Support for Tuition (with P. Lergetporer). CESifo Working Paper 9520 / IZA Discussion Paper 14991, January 2022 [tweet]
New Working Paper: Religious Education in School Affects Religiosity in Adulthood
We study whether compulsory religious education in schools affects students’ religiosity as adults. We exploit the staggered termination of compulsory religious education across German states in models with state and cohort fixed effects. Using three different datasets, we find that abolishing compulsory religious education significantly reduced religiosity of affected students in adulthood. It also reduced the religious actions of personal prayer, church-going, and church membership. Beyond religious attitudes, the reform led to more equalized gender roles, fewer marriages and children, and higher labor-market participation and earnings. The reform did not affect ethical and political values or non-religious school outcomes.
Can Schools Change Religious Attitudes? Evidence from German State Reforms of Compulsory Religious Education (with B. Arold and L. Zierow). CESifo Working Paper 9504 / IZA Discussion Paper 14989, January 2022 [tweet]
Religious Education in School Affects Students’ Lives in the Long Run (with B. Arold and L. Zierow). VoxEU.org, 3.3.2022