How schooling affects cognitive skills is a fundamental question for studies of human capital and labor markets. While scores on cognitive ability tests are positively associated with schooling, it has proven difficult to ascertain whether this relationship is causal. Moreover, the effect of...

A large theoretical and empirical literature explores whether politicians and political parties change their policy positions in response to voters' preferences. This paper asks the opposite question: do political parties affect public attitudes on important policy issues? Problems of reverse...