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...

We investigate whether a causal interpretation of the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth is appropriate and whether cross-country evidence supports a case for the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking...

We investigate the effect of higher education on the evolution of inequality. In so doing we propose a novel overlapping generations model with three social classes: the rich, the middle class, and the poor. We show that there is an initial phase in which no social class invests in higher...