University as a Melting Pot: Long-term Effects of Internationalization

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (Forthcoming)

• Abstract: Show

  This paper provides the first evidence on the impact of exposure to international students on the long-term outcomes of native students. I combine unique survey and administrative data from the Netherlands covering one million students across three decades and employ an across-cohort design. I find that exposure to international students leads natives to (i) form social ties with non-natives, (ii) hold more positive attitudes towards migration and learning about other cultures, and (iii) seek opportunities abroad. Notably, I find precisely estimated zero effects on employment, income, entrepreneurship, and the share of international co-workers up to 25 years after university entry.

The Impact of International Conflict on Cross-Border Commercial Dispute Resolution

Journal of Public Economics

• Abstract: Show

  International trade depends on the expectation that courts will protect commercial interests when disputes arise. With the growing number of international conflicts, it is crucial to know whether this expectation is met in practice. We examine the effect of the 2014 annexation of Crimea on the enforcement rate of foreign decisions by Russian and Ukrainian judges. We assemble novel data on the entire universe of Russian and Ukrainian court decisions concerning the enforcement of foreign decisions resolving cross-border commercial disputes. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that the enforcement rate of Ukrainian (Russian) decisions in Russia (Ukraine) fell by 26% (33%) after the annexation. We show that courts increasingly justified refusals through discretionary legal grounds and undue-notification claims. Our findings provide the first causal evidence that international conflict affects both judicial decision-making and compliance with commercial treaties.

Spillovers in Fields of Study: Siblings, Cousins, and Neighbors

Journal of Public Economics

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  We use admission lotteries for higher education studies in the Netherlands to investigate whether someone’s field of study influences the study choices of their younger peers. We find that younger siblings and cousins are strongly affected. Also younger neighbors are affected but to a smaller extent. These findings indicate that a substantial part of the correlations in study choices between family members can be attributed to spillover effects and are not due to shared environments. Our findings concur with those of recent studies based on admission thresholds, which find sibling spillovers on college or college-major choices. This indicates that the results from previous studies can be extrapolated to students away from admission thresholds, and from siblings to cousins and neighbors.

• Co-authors: Nadine Ketel, Hessel Oosterbeek, and Bas van der Klaauw
• Podcast: Spotify, Apple
• Media coverage: VoxEU, ASE

Balancing Study and Work: Heterogeneous Impact of the Bologna Reform on the Labour Market

Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics

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  The Bologna reform, the largest European education reform, was implemented in Russia in 2011. The reform shortened the duration of some undergraduate programmes by 1 year and compressed their curricula. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that the reform had no short- or medium-term adverse effects on employment. However, I find that null average effects on wages mask considerable heterogeneity. I find that female students with high relative returns worked less during their studies, invested in their human capital, and secured stable wages. In contrast, male students with low relative returns underinvested in human capital and experienced a decline in wages.

International Collaboration in Higher Education Research: A Gravity Model Approach

Scientometrics

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  Although geographical distance has become less relevant in co–authorship for monodisciplinary fields such as economics, mathematics, and physics, little is known about international collaboration in multidisciplinary fields such as higher education. This paper studies collaboration patterns in higher education research using the Scopus database with the application of the gravity model. The results show that the intensity of collaboration is negatively associated with geographical distance and positively associated with linguistic commonality but these findings differ significantly between various world regions. European scholars appear to give preference to linguistically proximate partners over geographical neighbours. Although English is the lingua franca in science, language is not a significant factor for the formation of collaboration for North American and Asian researchers. These findings have policy implications for fostering multidisciplinary research in international partnerships.

• Podcast: Spotify, Apple

The Sources of Researcher Variation in Economics

Journal of Economic Literature (Conditionally Accepted)

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  Disagreement among researchers is a central and productive feature of scientific progress. However, researchers’ discretionary choices, some of which are not easily observable, may cause standard errors to understate uncertainty. This paper synthesizes evidence on how researcher variation shapes empirical conclusions and presents new evidence on its sources and implications. We also report results from a many-analyst study in which 146 research teams estimate the same causal effect under varying constraints. Although central estimates are broadly aligned, dispersion remains substantial. Imposing a shared research design reduced agreement, partly due to adherence errors. Further restricting data cleaning and preparation improved agreement. Variation across researchers is often comparable in magnitude to sampling uncertainty but is unevenly distributed across stages of the research process. Overall, the evidence suggests that conventional uncertainty summaries understate total uncertainty and that less visible research decisions warrant greater scrutiny.

The Welfare Consequences of Preventable Chronic Disease

Policy Research