Policy debates about the balance of vocational and general education programs focus on the school-to-work transition. But with rapid technological change, gains in youth employment from vocational education may be offset by less adaptability and thus diminished employment later in life. To test...

As the time of leaving school determines the level of academic achievement this timing decision is central for the human capital investment decision. Real option theory offers a new perspective of the human capital investment decision under uncertainty and irreversibility. Unlike other...

The interaction between investment in children's education and parental fertility is crucial in recent theories of the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern economic growth. This paper contributes to the literature on the child quantity-quality trade-off with new county-level evidence...

This article analyzes the consequences of integration in public education. I show that the flight from the integrated multicultural public schools to private education increases private educational expenditures and, as a result, decreases fertility among more affluent parents whose children...

We formulate a two-period life-cycle model of saving, labor supply, and human capital investments when individuals differ in ability and initial wealth. Borrowing constraints prevent individuals to optimally smooth consumption over the life-cycle and to optimally invest in human capital. We show...

This paper uses a field experiment to answer how information frictions between parents and their children affect investments in education and how much reducing these frictions can improve student achievement. In Los Angeles, a random sample of parents was provided detailed information about...

University fees have recently trebled in England, prompting fears that young people may be put off from participating in higher education. We investigate students' knowledge and their receptiveness to information campaigns about the costs and benefits of staying on in education. We compare the...

Existing growth research provides little explanation for the very large differences in long-run growth performance across OECD countries. We show that cognitive skills can account for growth differences within the OECD, whereas a range of economic institutions and quantitative measures of...

Existing evidence, mostly from British textile industries, rejects the importance of formal education for the Industrial Revolution. We provide new evidence from Prussia, a technological follower, where early-19th-century institutional reforms created the conditions to adopt the exogenously...

The trade-off between child quantity and education is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed before the demographic transition, exploiting a unique...