"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...

Although many U.S. state policies presume that human capital is important for state economic development, there is little research linking better education to state incomes. In a complement to international studies of income differences, we investigate the extent to which quality-adjusted...

Expanded international data from the PIAAC survey of adult skills allow us to analyze potential sources of the cross-country variation of comparably estimated labor-market returns to skills in a more diverse set of 32 countries. Returns to skills are systematically larger in countries that have...

Most countries pay substantial intergovernmental transfers to poor regions. Since these transfers are often paid with the aim of achieving regional convergence, they should have a positive effect on economic growth. However, it is equally possible that transfers perpetuate under-development by...

The theoretical literature on the economics of fiscal federalism has identified several potential effects of government decentralization on economic growth. Much of the traditional literature focuses on the efficiency aspects of a decentralized provision of public services. However,...

The formation of regional production networks (RPNs) is one of the most important drivers of growth in East and Southeast Asia. In view of slowdown in growth and even recession in advanced economies as a result of the adverse impact of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the ongoing European...