Existing growth research provides little explanation for the very large differences in long-run growth performance across OECD countries. We show that cognitive skills can account for growth differences within the OECD, whereas a range of economic institutions and quantitative measures of...

Quantile regression has emerged as an essential statistical tool of contemporary empirical economics and biostatistics. Complementing classical least squares regression methods which are designed to estimate conditional mean models, quantile regression provides an ensemble of techniques for...

An emerging economic literature over the past decade has made use of international tests of educational achievement to analyze the determinants and impacts of cognitive skills. The cross-country comparative approach provides a number of unique advantages over national studies: It can exploit...