Colloquium: Essays in Economics of Education

ABSTRACT:  From an economic perspective, education is one of the most multifaceted and long-standing determinants of socioeconomic outcomes. Overarching themes include general returns to education, such as fertility, health behaviour, social and political participation, and income effects. This dissertation studies the causal impact of education across other dimensions that have received much less attention. In my first paper, I examine different dimensions of mobility in Germany, differentiated by educational attainment. We leverage two policy-induced increases in human capital, namely an increase in compulsory schooling and school starting age to investigate any causal effect on internal mobility. In my second paper, I examine the role of education as a fundamental component of critical infrastructure: here, I analyse the causal effect of permanent school closures in Germany on voting behaviour –particularly on more extremevoting outcomes, distinguished by different school types. I also identify mechanisms related to municipal-level developments to explain the underlying voting changes. In my third paper, I examine education as a key factor in the integration of refugees into the labour market and society. We utilise exogenous variation in the minimum years of compulsory schooling, age at arrival in Germany and the allocation keys of the German federal states to demonstrate that, ceteris paribus, refugees with higher human capital exhibit higher incomes, better job quality and higher employment rates. Taken together, my empirical results highlight the multifaceted role of education in shaping geographic mobility, political behaviour, and social integration.