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Raphael Brade

@raphaelbrade.bsky.social
563 followers 745 following 4 posts

Econ postdoc @ifo_Institut @ifoeducation.bsky.social. Interested in Economics of Education, Public Economics, Behavioral Economics, and Applied Microeconomics. Views are my own. sites.google.com/view/raphaelbrade

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Raphael Brade @raphaelbrade.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
New WP! We study whether telling first-year students about the earnings they forgo by delaying graduation changes their choices. Framing salaries as opportunity costs does not speed up progress but increases early dropout among students who are likely to exit eventually. www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo...
Paper Title: Information Framing and Student Decisions: Evidence from an Opportunity Cost Intervention
Authors: Lars Behlen, Raphael Brade, Oliver Himmler, Robert Jäckle
Abstract: Opportunity costs are central to economic decision-making but often neglected. In a pre-registered experiment with 2,222 German university freshmen, one treatment provides salary information; another additionally frames it as the opportunity cost of delayed graduation. Only the opportunity cost framing causes students to update salary expectations. We find no effect on academic progress but a 2.8 percentage points increase in first-semester dropout (p=0.080), concentrated among high-dropout-probability students (5.9 pp, p=0.025). For these marginal students, dropping out instead of progressing faster is the actionable margin. By semester three, dropout rates converge, suggesting acceleration of eventual exits rather than additional dropouts.
Keywords: natural field experiment, opportunity cost neglect, earnings expectations, academic achievement
JEL Codes: C93, D84, D91, I21, I23
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Raphael Brade @raphaelbrade.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
I'm very happy that this paper has found a home and has been published just in time for the holidays. Free access for 50 days: authors.elsevier.com/a/1mI6Bc24bB...
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