Which Signals of Skills Pay off in the Labor Market?
Which skills are valued by employers? And how can graduates signal these skills effectively to potential employers? To address these questions, Marc Piopiunik, Lisa Simon, and Ludger Woessmann of the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, together with ifo research professor Guido Schwerdt (Konstanz), have conducted a survey experiment with nearly 600 human-resource managers of German firms who choose between CVs with randomized skill signals. They find that signals in all three studied domains - cognitive skills, social skills, and maturity - have a significant effect on being invited for a job interview. But the signals that prove relevant, expected, and credible differ by context, for example between apprenticeship applicants and college graduates. While grades and social skills are significant for both genders, males are particularly rewarded for maturity and females for IT and language skills. more...
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Central Exit Exams Improve Student Outcomes
In his contribution to the IZA World of Labor, Ludger Woessmann argues
that implementing central exams at the end of secondary
school may prove much more effective at improving
student outcomes than many other resource-intensive
educational initiatives.Central exams act as an
accountability device that reveals the overall outcome
of the efforts of students and schools. They increase
external rewards for learning, enhance monitoring of
teachers and schools, and decrease peer pressure against
learning. As a consequence, central exams improve the
learning outcomes and subsequent labor-market
performance of students and raise the understanding of
grades - their information value - in the labor market. more...
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The Effect of Classroom Computers Depends on their Use
Many proponents hope that computer-assisted instruction
constitutes a technological breakthrough that will
fundamentally revolutionize education. On average,
however, using computers in the classroom does not lead
to an improvement in students' achievement in math and science. But the average result masks the fact that the use of computers has opposing effects in different areas: If computers are used to look up ideas and information, student outcomes improve; but using computers to practice skills reduces student achievement. This is the result of a study by Oliver Falck of the ifo Center for Industrial Organisation and New Technologies, Constantin Mang and Ludger Woessmann of the ifo Center for the Economics of Education which has just been published as the lead article of the new volume of the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. The study covers the achievement of over 400,000 fourth- and eighth-graders from over 50 countries on the TIMSS international student achievement test. The findings show that a qualitative improvement in teaching will occur only if the use of computers is focused on specific activities where it creates real added value. more...
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Do Pre-Service Cognitive and Pedagogical Skills Predict Teacher Effectiveness?
What makes an effective teacher? Do students learn more from teachers who had better grades in school and college? In a new ifo Working Paper which is part of his Ph.D. dissertation at the ifo Center for the Economics of Education, Bernhard Enzi addresses this question using data from the German National Educational Panel Study. Better grades in high school and pre-service pedagogical exams of teachers are indeed associated with greater gains in student achievement in math and German. Grades observed before job start thus predict teacher effectiveness. more...
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Attitudes toward Refugees Are Not Affected by Beliefs about their Education Level
Are attitudes toward refugees affected by beliefs about
their education level? To answer this question, in a new
CESifo Working Paper Philipp Lergetporer, Marc
Piopiunik, and Lisa Simon of the ifo Center for the
Economics of Education conduct a survey experiment with
more than 5,000 university students. Through information
provision, they shift participants' beliefs about
refugees' education level. This affects respondents' concerns about labor-market competition. However, these concerns do not change their general attitudes toward refugees because the latter are hardly affected by economic aspects. more...
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Religious Tolerance Was an Engine of Innovation in Economic History
In a new CESifo Working Paper, Francesco Cinnirella of
the ifo Center for the Economics of Education and Jochen
Streb of the University of Mannheim argue that tolerance
and diversity are conducive to technological creativity
and innovation. They show that higher levels of
religious tolerance - as measured by religious diversity
of the population, churches, preachers, and teachers - are related to higher levels of innovation during the second industrial revolution across 1,278 Prussian cities. Additional investigations suggest that the attraction of high-skilled migrants was a relevant mechanism and that religious diversity fostered interaction rather than segmentation of denominations in the workforce. more...
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Ph.D. Thesis: Education Economics from a Historical Perspective
The organization of the Prussian school system still resonates in the German education system today. In her dissertation written at the ifo Center for the Economics of Education and accepted by the University of Munich, Ruth Schüler analyzes different aspects of the economic causes and consequences of education in Prussia towards the end of the 19th century. The four chapters address the questions how the funding of the education system emerged in the federal state and how the increasing centralization of education spending affected prosperity and nation building in a setting of religious and ethno-linguistic diversity. more...
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Which Skill Signals Matter Truly in Getting a Job?
Lisa Simon's blog post at the Centre for Vocational Education of the London School of Economics. more...
Vocational Education in Finland
The annual report of the Finnish Economic Policy Council covers a background report by Ludger Woessmann about vocational education in apprenticeship systems. more...
What Explains the Sorry State of India's Education Sector?
The Indian News Website The Wire quotes the work of Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann about the importance of educational outcomes. more...
Vocational Education over the Life Cycle
The Shanghai Observer reports about the paper of Eric Hanushek, Guido Schwerdt, Lei Zhang, and Ludger Woessmann about the effects of vocational education over the life cycle. more...
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Tuition Fees: Nothing Is Fairer
The Süddeutsche Zeitung prints a debate between Achim Meyer auf der Heyde, Secretary General of the German Association of Student Affairs, and Ludger Woessmann about tuition fees. more...
Learning into High Age
Interview with Ludger Woessmann about lifelong learning and the importance of basic skills for the radio program SWR2 Wissen. more...
Are Our Children Better Off?
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung cites Ludger Woessmann about the influence of the family on access to education. more...
Education Has Become More Equal
The Badische Zeitung cites Ludger Woessmann on its front page about unequal starting conditions in education. more...
Grade Repetition is Ineffective
The Münchner Merkur cites Ludger Woessmann about the high costs of repeating a grade. more...
Germany's Digital Future
Two television contributions with Ludger Woessmann are now available in the CESifo media center (Tagesschau24 and n-tv).
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Articles in Refereed Journals
Oliver Falck, Constantin Mang, and Ludger Woessmann, "Virtually No Effect? Different Uses of Classroom Computers and their Effect on Student Achievement", Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 80 (1): 1-38, 2018.
Ludger Woessmann, "Central Exit Exams Improve
Student Outcomes", IZA World of Labor 2018: 419.
Monographs
Bernhard Enzi, Microeconometric Analyses of Cognitive Achievement Production, ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung 75, Munich: ifo Institute, 2017.
Ruth Maria Schüler, Education Economics from a Historical Perspective, ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung 78, Munich: ifo Institute, 2017.
Working Papers
Francesco Cinnirella and Jochen Streb, "Religious Tolerance as Engine of
Innovation", CESifo Working Paper No. 6797, December 2017.
Bernhard Enzi, "The Effect of Pre-Service Cognitive and Pedagogical Teacher
Skills on Student Achievement Gains: Evidence from
German Entry Screening Exams", ifo Working Paper No. 243, Munich: ifo Institute, 2017.
Philipp Lergetporer, Marc Piopiunik, and Lisa Simon, "Do Natives' Beliefs about Refugees' Education Level Affect Attitudes toward Refugees? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments", CESifo Working Paper No. 6832, December 2017.
Marc Piopiunik, Guido Schwerdt, Lisa Simon, and Ludger Woessmann, "Skills, Signals, and Employability: An Experimental Investigation", CESifo Working Paper No. 6858, January 2018.
Further Articles
Francesco Cinnirella and Erik Hornung, "Land Inequality, Education, and Marriage: Empirical Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Prussia", in: Matteo Cervellati and Uwe Sunde (eds.), Demographic Change and Long Run Development, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press: 183-220, 2017.
Francesco Cinnirella, Gianni Toniolo, and Giovanni Vecchi, "Child Labor", in: Giovanni Vecchi (eds.), Measuring Wellbeing: A History of Italian Living Standards, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 143-174, 2017.
Marc Piopiunik, Guido Schwerdt, Lisa Simon, and Ludger Woessmann, "Die Bedeutung von Produktivitätssignalen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt: Ein Experiment mit Lebensläufen unter Personalleitern", ifo Schnelldienst 71 (4): 25-29, 2018.
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