Does More Schooling Lead to Less or More Inequality of Educational Opportunity?

Critical theories of education but also the dynamics of skill formation model predict that the education system reproduces educational inequalities. Contrary to this hypothesis, empirical studies comparing the change in inequalities in academic performance over the summer to the change in these inequalities during the school year, have argued that schooling reduces inequalities in educational performance. The present study sheds new light on the question whether schooling affects educational inequalities by analyzing a natural experiment, which induces exogenous variation in the length of schooling, and allows us to investigate the causal, long-term effects of the length of schooling on educational inequalities. Some German states moved the school start from spring to summer in 1966/1967. These states introduced two short school years, which were each three months shorter than regular school years. We use variation in the short school years across cohorts and states to estimate the causal effects of the length of schooling on inequalities in educational attainment using two German panel surveys. Less schooling due to the short school years did not affect inequalities in educational attainment. This finding runs counter to the results from the summer learning literature but also to the predictions of the dynamics of skill formation model and critical theories of education. We conclude by discussing the implications of this finding for our understanding of inequality of educational opportunity.

Social inclusion and collective skill formation systems: policy and politics

This thematic review essay focuses on the relationship between social inclusion and collective skill formation systems. It briefly surveys foundational literature in comparative political economy and comparative social policy that documented and explained the traditionally socially inclusive nature of these systems. It reviews how the literature conceptualized the current challenges faced by collective skill formation systems in upholding their inclusive nature in the context of the transition to post-industrial societies. It then discusses in detail a recent strand of literature that investigates the policy responses that have been deployed across countries to deal with these challenges. It concludes by providing heuristics that may be useful for researchers who seek to advance the study of the policy and politics of social inclusion in collective skill formation systems.

The Econometrics of Early Childhood Human Capital and Investments

This article reviews recent developments in the econometrics of early childhood human capital and investments. We start with a discussion about the lack of cardinality in test scores, the reasons it matters for empirical research on human capital, and the approaches researchers have used to address this problem. Next, we discuss how the literature has accounted for the errors in human capital measurements and investments. Then, we focus on the estimation of production functions of human capital. We present two different specifications of the production function and discuss when to use one versus the other. We describe how researchers have addressed cardinality, measurement errors, and endogeneity of inputs to estimate the technology of skill formation. Finally, we take stock of the work to date, and we identify opportunities for new research directions in this field.