Ulf Zölitz

🆕 RFBerlin Discussion Paper: @xshan.bsky.social, @ulfzoelitz.bsky.social, and Uschi Backes-Gellner provide first-time evidence that online instruction disproportionally harms the learning outcomes of women compared to men. www.rfberlin.com/network-pape...

You can read the full paper here:
www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo...

Shan, Zölitz & Backes-Gellner (2025). "Disconnecting Women: Gender Disparities in the Impact of Online Instruction" CESifo Working Paper #11997.

Are these results new?
Our meta-analysis shows that we already knew that online instruction generally hurts performance (avg −0.20 SD), but with a median sample size of 491 observations, most prior work lacked the power to detect the hidden equity cost of online instruction.

Why does online instruction disproportionally harm women? Survey & zoom attendance data show that women more strongly prefer in-person lectures. When assigned more online lectures, they perceive the course as less enjoyable, less comprehensible, and instructors as less engaging.

The negative effect of online instruction on women is concentrated in math-intensive courses and lasting. Here, women exposed to more online earn fewer credits and become more likely to drop out of the program.
🚨🚨🚨

For the first paper documenting a gender gap in the impact of online instruction, we must worry about the possibility of a false positive. It’s not! The gap remains highly precise after multiple-testing corrections (Bonferroni p=0.0036).

More online instruction significantly lowers women’s performance, while leaving men’s unaffected. A 10 ppt shift toward online instruction decreases women’s exam score by 0.038 SD (p<0.001).

🚨 New working paper! 🚨
We ran a field experiment with >1,300 university students randomly assigned to online vs in-person lectures. What happens? Online instruction hurts performance, but only for women♀️📉

with Xiaoyue Shan & Uschi Backes-Gellner
www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo...

I appreciate the multiple hypothesis testing reason for indices. But think of a meta-analysis that can't use the study b/c disaggregated results aren't shown.

I'd be fine if people just shared this post-publication.

(My use case: an index that combines women's gender attitudes and employment.)

Peers Affect Personality Development Abstract. Do people around us influence our personality? We investigate this question through a field experiment where we randomly assign university students to study groups. We find personality spill...

A new paper by @xshan.bsky.social and @ulfzoelitz.bsky.social presents evidence from a randomised field experiment showing that peer groups can influence students’ conscientiousness, openness, and competitiveness - but have no spillover effects on extraversion, agreeableness, or neuroticism.
Link👇

IZA has been a key player in shaping labor economics, fostering collaborations, and providing a valuable platform for Economists worldwide.

Hard to accept that IZA will simply vanish.

When cleaning up I found this old business card of mine. During the 3 years I worked at IZA/briq as a postdoc I had an incredible productive time and terrific colleagues.

📢 Call for papers:

🚀 3rd CESifo/ifo Junior Workshop on the Economics of Education 🥳

12-13 May 2025, Munich

Keynote: Alexander Willen

PhD students & early postdocs, please apply!

www.cesifo.org/en/event/202...

Deadline: 16 Feb 2025

Co-organizer: Caterina Pavese @cesifo.org #EconSky

We have have scheduled 3 flyouts taking place in the second half of January.

Now heading to UNSW for ESCoE conference to present « Same-sex teacher effects in education » with @econfeld.bsky.social @nsalamanca.bsky.social @ulfzoelitz.bsky.social — paper here 👉🏽 adegendre.github.io/papers/deGen... — we even made a website with interactive effects ! www.role-model-effects.com

We received many excellent applications and have scheduled 11 interviews with candidates that fit the position.

📢 We are hiring 📢

ifo is looking to fill 5 positions, incl. one

6-year Postdoc 👩‍🎓

to join our team at the ifo Center for the Economics of Education!

👉https://econjobmarket.org/positions/11131
Deadline: 24 Nov 2024

Please spread the word! #EconSky

We received 255 applications and have started screening. 35% of applications came in on the last day. Number of applications is down 20% compared to previous years where we had positions with a similar focus.

🚨 Job alert! 🚨

The Jacobscenter and Department of Economics is looking for an Assistant Professor specializing in the Economics of Child and Youth Development.

📅 Deadline: TOMORROW!

Apply here: econjobmarket.org/positions/10...

Are teachers *generally* better at teaching students of their own sex?
 
NO in primary education,
YES in secondary education.
 
A 🧵 generalizability and same-sex teacher effects

www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/23...

Come to Zurich and work with me.
I am hiring a predoc.

More info is here:
ulfzoelitz.com/wp-content/u...

That’s awesome!
Congratulations!!!!