Randomized field experiments designed to better understand the production of human capital have increased exponentially over the past several decades. This chapter summarizes what we have learned about various partial derivatives of the human capital production function, what important partial...

This study exploits experimental variation in parent human capital (early-life school-based deworming) and a shock to schooling (extended Covid closures) to estimate how these factors interact in the production of child human capital within a sample of 3,500 Kenyan 3-8 year olds. Parents with...

Education and training are a high priority for Costa Rica that devotes to them more than 6.5% of GDP, one of the highest spending shares among OECD countries. However, educational outcomes remain poor and firms struggle to fill their vacancies, particularly in technical and scientific positions,...

From the point of view of economic development, education is the acquisition of knowledge and skills through experiences from conception onwards over the life cycle that increase productivity broadly defined. Education can occur through, but is not limited to, formal educational activities such...

Governments invest a lot of money in education, so it is important to understand the benefits of this spending. One essential aspect is that education can potentially make people better parents and thus improve the educational and employment outcomes of their children. Interventions that...

In the three decades before the pandemic, mean achievement of U.S. 8th graders in math rose by more than half a standard deviation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Between 2019 and 2022, U.S. students had forfeited 40 percent of that rise. To anticipate the consequences...

This survey reviews the existing literature, identifying the contribution of agriculture, schooling, and nutrition to economic growth and development over time and across countries. Particular attention is paid to the roles of improvements in agricultural technology and of the human capital of...

In recent years, there has been an astonishing proliferation of empirical work on child labor. An Econlit search of keywords “child lab*r” reveals a total of 6 peer reviewed journal articles between 1980 and 1990, 65 between 1990 and 2000, and 143 in the first five years of the present...

Owing to past structural reforms, Costa Rica has enjoyed robust GDP growth and productivity levels are gradually converging towards the OECD average. However, large GDP per capita and productivity gaps persist. In addition, not everyone has benefited from this growth. Inequality has increased...

In response to declining budgets, many school districts in the US have reduced funding for sports. In Europe, parents may respond to difficult economic times by spending less on sports clubs for their children. Such cuts are unwise if participating in sports is an investment good as well as a...