Vietnam's high economic growth in the 1990s led to sharp reductions in poverty, yet over the same time period inequality increased. This increased inequality may be less worrisome if Vietnamese households experience a high degree of income mobility over time. This is because high mobility...

January 2000 - Vietnam's gains in poverty reduction between 1992 and 1998 were striking, and the country's impressive growth has been fairly broad-based. Households that have benefited most are well-educated, urban, white-collar households, while agricultural workers, ethnic minorities, and...

One of the key features of the Dutch education system is freedom of education - freedom to establish schools and organize teaching. Almost 70 percent of schools in the Netherlands are administered by private school boards, and all schools are government funded equally. This allows school choice....

Progress in educational development in the world since 1900 has been slow and uneven between countries. Providing basic education for all children in developing countries has been and remains an unmet challenge of governments and international organizations alike. This is in sharp contrast to...

In 2000, the goal that, by 2015, all children will have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality, was set. Despite the progress in terms of student enrollment and completion, the quality of learning produced in developing countries remains poor. Existing...

This paper exploits unique information on cognitive ability to examine the importance of schooling and non-schooling cognitive skills for heterogeneous individuals using instrumental variables estimation. Using a binary instrument based on the 1981 reform in Chile, the authors find that the main...

This paper uses the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment student-level achievement database for Mexico to estimate state education production functions, controlling for student characteristics, family background, home inputs, resources, and institutions. The authors take advantage...

This paper summarizes the socioeconomic conditions of children around the world. It explores solutions to the main problems, along with a summary of the costs and benefits of some of the solutions. Emphasis is on the results from rigorous studies, impact evaluations, and randomized experiments....