We provide evidence that the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth reflects a causal effect of cognitive skills and supports the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking student achievement across countries, over...

Returns to education are traditionally estimated in a Mincer wage equation from the variation in schooling for a cross-section of individuals of different ages. Because individuals receive education at different time periods, when the quality of their education may not be identical, this method...

The leading school reform policy in the United States revolves around strong accountability of schools with consequences for performance. The federal government's involvement through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 reinforces the prior movement of many states toward policies based on...

Rising inequality in the United States has raised concerns about potentially widening gaps in educational achievement by socio-economic status (SES). Using assessments from LTT-NAEP, Main-NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA that are psychometrically linked over time, we trace trends in achievement for U.S....

Patience and risk-taking - two cultural traits that steer intertemporal decision-making - are fundamental to human capital investment decisions. To understand how they contribute to international differences in student achievement, we combine PISA tests with the Global Preference Survey. We find...

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...

Critics of international student comparisons argue that results may be influenced by differences in the extent to which countries adequately sample their entire student populations. In this research note, we show that larger exclusion and non-response rates are related to better country average...

Economic development in Latin America has trailed most other world regions over the past four decades despite its relatively high initial development and school attainment levels. This puzzle can be resolved by considering the actual learning as expressed in tests of cognitive skills, on which...

The role of improved schooling, a central part of most development strategies, has become controversial because expansion of school attainment has not guaranteed improved economic conditions. This paper reviews the role of education in promoting economic well-being, with a particular focus on...

Previous work shows that higher levels of education quality (as measured by international student achievement tests) increases growth rates of national income. This paper begins by confirming those findings in an analysis involving more countries over more time with additional controls. We then...