I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and the Berlin School of Economics (BSE) via Freie Universität Berlin. Since January 2022, I am also Chair of the Board of the Berlin Network of Labor Market Research (BeNA).
My research interests lie in the area of Labor Economics and the Economics of Education. Here, I am especially interested in the determinants of college enrollment and college completion, as well as the (expected) returns to tertiary education. If you are interested in my projects, please get in contact with me.
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PhD in Economics, since 2019
Freie Universität Berlin
MSc in Economics, 2016-2019
LMU Munich and Université Paris-Saclay
BA in Economics, 2013-2016
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Using detailed data from a unique survey of high school graduates in Germany, we document a gender gap in expected full-time earnings of more than 15%. We apply a regression-compatible Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and find that especially differences in coefficients help explain the gap. In particular, the effects of having time for family as career motive and being first-generation college student are associated with large penalties in female wage expectations exclusively. This is especially true for higher expected career paths. Resulting expected returns to education are associated with college enrollment of women and could thus entrench subsequent gaps in realized earnings.
Following a landmark court ruling in 2005, more than half of Germany’s universities started charging tuition fees, which were subsequently abolished until 2015. We exploit the unusual lack of grandfathering in these policies to show that fees increase study effort and degree completion among incumbent students. However, fees also decrease first-time university enrollment among high school graduates. Combining this enrollment impact with the effect on completion, we find that fees around the zero-price margin have only little effect on overall educational attainment. We conclude by discussing policies targeting the separate effect margins of fees and caution against a general abolition.