In this episode of Policy Matters, hosts Matt Dickson and Franz Buscha talk to Arnaud Chevalier, Professor of Economics at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Franz and Matt start by asking Arnaud about several of his projects examining how parents influence their children’s educational attainment, and in particular why the fall of the Berlin wall led to a dip in school results. The discussion then moves on to higher education, Arnaud explaining how the ethnic and linguistic mix in a classroom impacts attainment, with wider implications for managing migration.

Finally, Franz and Matt talk to Arnaud about his work on the MMR vaccine crisis of the late 1990s and how education impacted the responses to public health information – very pertinent in the current worldwide coronavirus outbreak. In the midst of it all we hear Franz’s musings on a possible alternative life as a farmer…