Reanalyzing Zero Returns to Education in Germany

Kamhöfer, Daniel A.; Schmitz, Hendrik

doi:10.1002/jae.2461

Cited by 33 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Second, keeping the educational level constant, the role of instructional timing and age is analyzed. In addition, this study extends the literature on Germany, especially given the puzzle that Kamhöfer and Schmitz (2015) find no effects while for all other countries investigated there exist positive cognitive returns to education. Furthermore, the rich datasets contain extensive tests of cognitive ability allowing for different cognitive dimensions to be distinguished.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Previous Literaturesupporting

confidence: 68%

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How does education improve cognitive skills? Instructional time versus timing of instruction

Dahmann

2017

Labour Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research at DIW BerlinThis series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly.Any opinions expressed in this series are those of the author(s) and not those of DIW Berlin.Research disseminated by DIW Berlin may include views on public policy issues, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. Abstract This paper investigates two mechanisms through which education may affect cognitive skills in adolescence: the role of instructional quantity and the timing of instruction with respect to age. To identify causal effects, I exploit a school reform carried out at the state level in Germany as a quasi-natural experiment: between 2001 and 2007, the academic-track high school (Gymnasium) was reduced by one year in most of Germany's federal states, leaving the overall curriculum unchanged.To investigate the impact of this educational change on students' cognitive abilities, I conduct two separate analyses: first, I exploit the variation in the curriculum taught to same-aged students at academic-track high school over time and across states to identify the effect of the increase in class hours on students' crystallized and fluid intelligence scores. Using rich data on seventeen year-old adolescents from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study, the estimates show that fluid intelligence remained unaffected, while crystallized intelligen...

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Section: Theoretical Background and Previous Literaturesupporting

confidence: 68%

“…Hence, with the exception of the study on Germany by Kamhöfer and Schmitz (2015), all studies find clearly positive effects of an additional year of schooling on cognitive abilities. Most of these analyses use a change in overall school duration by one year to identify positive effects on cognition.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Previous Literaturementioning

confidence: 76%

How does education improve cognitive skills? Instructional time versus timing of instruction

Dahmann

2017

Labour Economics

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“…Affected mothers have a 1.5 percentage points higher probability to work and wages increase by 0.5 percent. 25 These small effects are in line with the zero-returns to compulsory schooling in Pischke and von Wachter (2008) and Kamhöfer and Schmitz (2016). The authors argue that basic track students already learned labour market-relevant skills earlier.…”

Section: Soepmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…The reform was implemented at different points in time across federal states (see Appendix Table B.1). It is exploited in other studies analysing the impact of increases in schooling on labour market outcomes (Pischke and von Wachter, 2008;Kamhöfer and Schmitz, 2016), health behaviours and health status of the affected generation (Kemptner, Jürges, and Reinhold, 2011), civic engagement (Siedler, 2010), and fertility (Cygan-Rehm and Maeder, 2013). Piopiunik (2014) uses the reform to study the effects on children's school track.…”

Section: The Compulsory Schooling Reform In West Germanymentioning

confidence: 99%

Intergenerational Effects of Education on Risky Health Behaviours and Long-Term Health

Huebener

2017

SSRN Journal

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This paper estimates the causal effects of parental education on their children's risky health behaviours and health status. I study the intergenerational effects of a compulsory schooling reform in Germany after World War II. Implemented across federal states at different points in time, the reform increased the minimum number of school years from eight to nine. Instrumental variable estimates and difference-indifferences estimates reveal that increases in maternal schooling reduce children's probability to smoke and to be overweight in adolescence. The effects persist into adulthood, reducing chronic conditions that often result from unhealthy lifestyles. No such effects can be identified for paternal education. Increased investments in children's education and improvements in their peer environment early in life are important for explaining the effects. Changes in family income, family stability, fertility and parental health-related behaviours are less relevant empirically. The intergenerational effects of education on health and health-related behaviours exceed the direct effects. Studies neglecting the intergenerational perspective substantially understate the full causal effects.

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“…This did not only result from the WWII but also from the "anti-intellectualism" (Picht, 1964, p.66) in the Third Reich. (ii) An increase in the number of academic secondary schools at the same time (as analyzed in Kamhöfer andSchmitz, 2015, andJürges et al, 2011, for instance) qualified a larger share of school graduates to enroll into higher education (Bartz, 2007). (iii) A change in production technologies led to an increase in firm's demand for high-skilled workers -especially, given the low level of educational participation (Weisser, 2005).…”

Section: College Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%