Are Student Exchange Programs Worth It? The number of university students participating in exchange programs has risen sharply over the last decade, but a survey of Swiss university graduates (class of 1999 and 2001) shows that participation in student exchange programs significantly prolongs the period of time spent studying at university. Given this fact, the advantages of exchange programs f...

In many educational settings, students may have an incentive to take courses where high grades are easier to achieve, potentially corroding student learning, evaluation of student achievement, and the fairness and efficiency of post-graduation labor outcomes. A grading system that takes into account heterogeneity of teacher standards and student ability could mitigate these problems. Using uniq...

Staphylococcus aureus superantigen-carrying pathogenicity islands (SaPIs) play a determinant role in spreading virulence genes among bacterial populations that constitute a major health hazard. Repressor (Stl) proteins are responsible for the transcriptional regulation of pathogenicity island genes. Recently, a derepressing interaction between the repressor Stl SaPIbov1 and dUTPase from the φ11...

and Commentary also published in ACP Journal Club I995;i23:25. cancer screening in women 40 to 49 years of age is controversial, its efficacy in women SO to 74 years of age is undisputed (1). Despite the strength of the evidence, breast cancer screening is largely underased. Interventions that are found to be effective in increasing the rate of physician recommendation for breast cancer screeni...

We study the location-specific component in research productivity of economics and finance faculty who have ever been affiliated with the top 25 universities in the last three decades. We find that there was a positive effect of being affiliated with an elite university in the 1970s; this effect weakened in the 1980s and disappeared in the 1990s. We decompose this university fixed effect and fi...

This paper analyses a political force that can cause an initial expansion of public spending on higher education and an ensuing decline in subsidies per student: the increase in the number, and thus voting power, of skilled parents. The rise of the skilled class leads to a majority for an initial expansion of public education spending. This expansion further boosts the number of skilled parents...

This paper estimates the effect of receiving a need-based grant on the performance of university students in Italy. We perform both cross-sectional (between-universities) and within-universities propensity score matching analyses in order to evaluate the effect of grants on several students’ performance indicators as first year credits, dropout, and study efficiency. The findings suggest that f...

Class Size and Class Heterogeneity We study how class size and composition affect the academic and labor market performances of college students, two crucial policy questions given the secular increase in college enrollment. We rely on the random assignment of students to teaching classes. Our results suggest that a one standard deviation increase in the class-size would result in a 0.1 standar...

Job Search as a Determinant of Graduate Over-Education: Evidence from Australia This study considers the relationship between job search and over-education amongst recent Australian bachelor degree graduates. Using a panel estimation method, we find that using universities’ career offices is associated with a reduced probability of over-education (between 3% and 8%) vis-à-vis responding to a jo...

Since 1991 more than two dozen states have adopted merit-based student financial aid programs, intended at least in part to increase the stock of human capital by improving the knowledge and skills of the state’s workforce. At the same time, there has been growing concern that the U.S. is producing too few college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Usi...