Michela Braga

Institutional Reforms and Educational Attainment in Europe: A Long Run Perspective

In this paper we study the effects of educational reforms on school attainment. We construct a dataset of relevant reforms that occurred at the national level over the last century, and match individual information from 24 European countries to the most likely set�?up faced when individual educational choices were undertaken. Our identification strategy relies on temporal and geographical variations in the institutional arrangements, controlling for time/country fixed effects, as well as for country specific time trend. By characterizing each group of reforms for their impact on mean years of education, educational inequality and intergenerational persistence, we show an ideal policy menu which has been available to policymakers. We distinguish between groups of policies that are either ‘inclusive’ or ‘selective’, depending on their diminishing or augmenting impact on inequality and persistence. Finally, we correlate these reform measures to political coalitions prevailing in parliament, finding support for the idea that left�?wing parties support reforms that are inclusive, while right�?wing parties prefer selective ones.

When the Manna Comes from Abroad. Remittances and Youth Labour Market Behaviour in Albania.

Using data from Albanian Living Standard Measurement Study we examine the eect of received remittances on youth labour market partic- ipation. Results from OLS estimation suggest the existence of a traditional neoclassical income eect. We control for potential endogeneity instru- menting the received remittances with the per capita number of Money Transfer Operators in each Albanian district in the year before the survey and with the distance from the border. When accounting for endogene- ity we …nd no statistical evidence that remittances, through a traditional income eect, reduce individual labour market participation.