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 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 explore the relationships between subjective well-being and income, as seen across individuals within a given country, between countries in a given year, and as a country grows through time. We show that richer individuals in a given country are more satisfied with their lives than are poorer...

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...

Incomes per capita have grown dramatically over the past two centuries, but the increase has been unevenly spread across time and across the world. Growth accounting is the principal quantitative tool for understanding this phenomenon, and for assessing the prospects for further increases in...

The neoclassical growth accounting model used by the BLS to sort out the contributions of the various sources of growth in the U.S. economy accords a relatively small role to education. This result seems at variance with the revolution in information technology and the emergence of the...

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...

The quot;Easterlin paradoxquot; suggests that there is no link between a society's economic development and its average level of happiness. We re-assess this paradox analyzing multiple rich datasets spanning many decades. Using recent data on a broader array of countries, we establish a clear...