CEP | People | Sönke Matthewes

Biography

Dr Sönke Matthewes is an Assistant Professor of Applied Economics (tenure track) at Utrecht University (Netherlands). He is an Associate at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, a Research Affiliate at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics and a Fellow of the College for Interdisciplinary Education Research (CIDER).

Current areas of research include:

Returns to vocational education
Peer effects
The impact of automation on returns to skills
Achievement rank effects in tracked settings
Achievement effects of ability tracking in schools

Publications

Journal article

De-tracking at the margin: How alternative secondary education pathways affect student attainment

This paper estimates how marginal increases in the flexibility of between-school tracking affect student attainment by exploiting the addition of non-selective ‘comprehensive schools’ and hybrid ‘vocational high schools’... Read more...

Camilla Borgna and Sönke Hendrik Matthewes

01 February 2025

Blog

On Track to Success? Returns to Vocational Education against different alternatives

In the wake of Brexit and the global pandemic, skills shortages across the UK economy risk hampering efforts to reverse a decade of languishing productivity and festering inequality. Reinvigorating the long-neglected Bri... Read more...

Sönke Hendrik Matthewes and Guglielmo Ventura

11 November 2022

CVER Research Papers

On Track to Success? Returns to vocational education against different alternatives

Many countries consider expanding vocational curricula in secondary education to boost skills and labour market outcomes among non-university-bound students. However, critics fear this could divert other students from mo... Read more...

Sönke Hendrik Matthewes and Guglielmo Ventura

11 November 2022

CEP discussion papers

Better together? Heterogeneous effects of tracking on student achievement

I study the effects of early between-school ability tracking on student achievement, exploiting institutional differences between German federal states. In all states, about 40% of students transition to separate academi... Read more...

Sönke Hendrik Matthewes

14 July 2020