Projects

Over the past decade it has become standard practice in European countries to use language tests as part of migration and integration policy. The fact that the empirical evidence supporting the use of language tests as a proxy for integration, is rather thin has not stopped these policies from gaining traction worldwide. This research project holds that policy against the light in terms of validity, effectiveness and fairness. In doing so, we ...

Within the context of school accountability systems, many countries use value added (VA)-estimates as indicators of the educational quality or effectiveness of their schools. A fundamental issue in this field is the (in)stability of VA estimates across time, i.e., the extent to which school effects persist over successive cohorts of students. VA-estimates are less stable, i.e., less reliable, especially for primary schools and for schools ...

Workforce diversity in terms of age and wage is a critical challenge of increasing importance for firms. The aging population trend forces people to work longer, creating historically high levels of workforce age diversity. At the same time, because wage is a key incentive for employees, firm wage diversity remains a pertinent concern. How does this workforce age and wage diversity affect firm performance? This is the allencompassing ...

Karrikins (KARs) and strigolactones (SLs) are two classes of molecules which have a large impact on plant growth and development. KARs are spontaneously formed from burning plant material. Seeds use them as a germination signal to take advantage of reduced competition after bushfires. SLs also induce germination but have a much broader role, serving as true phytohormones. At first glance KARs and SLs look quite different at the molecular ...