This week in research #113

Here's what caught my eye in research over the past week:

• Babiarz et al. (with ungated earlier version here) show that most of China’s fertility decline occurred during the earlier Wan Xi Shao (Later, Longer, Fewer, LLF) campaign, rather than the One Child Policy
• Clark and Nielsen (with ungated earlier version here) conduct a meta-analysis of studies on the returns to education and find that, after controlling for publication bias, the effects are smaller than expected (but still 8.2 percent per year of education)
• Bratti, Granato, and Havari (open access) demonstrate that a policy reducing the number of exam retakes per year at one Italian university significantly improved students’ first-year outcomes, resulting in lower dropout rates, increased exam pass rates, and enhanced credit accumulation (presumably because the students had to give the exam their best shot the first time around)
• Buechele et al. (open access) find no systematic evidence indicating that the prestige of the doctoral degree-granting university systematically affects individuals' odds of being appointed to professorships in Germany (because the prestigious universities train a disproportionate number of the PhD graduates)

Finally, I spent today and yesterday at the New Zealand Economics Forum. I wasn't one of the speakers, so I could again enjoy the proceedings from the floor. Overall, I thought that this may have been the best Forum so far (it has been running for six years now). You can watch recordings of the sessions now (here for Day One from the main room, here for the Day One breakout room sessions, here for Day Two from the main room, and here for the Day Two breakout room sessions). Enjoy!