This review describes the research frontier on human capital and education in economics research. It delineates what is known and largely agreed, and what are the most promising lines for future research. The approach will be to explain clearly and precisely the research evidence, in a way that...

An emerging economic literature over the past decade has made use of international tests of educational achievement to analyze the determinants and impacts of cognitive skills. The cross-country comparative approach provides a number of unique advantages over national studies: It can exploit...

We assess the hypothesis that declining intergenerational economic mobility in Norway is attributable to a rising signaling value of education accompanied by more overeducation particularly among upperclass offspring. We identify five empirical facts that together point in this direction: •...

We consider redistributional taxation between people with and without human capital if education is endogenous and if individuals differ in their perceptions about own ability. Those who see their ability as low like redistributive taxation because of the transfers it generates. Those who see...

Generous maternity leave, affordable daycare, extensive social safety nets, excellent universal health care, and high-quality public schools, are all notable features of Nordic countries. There is a widespread belief that such strong public investments in children contribute to a levelled...

Can public university honors programs deliver the benefits of selective undergraduate education within otherwise nonselective institutions? We evaluate the impact of admission to the Honors College at Oregon State University, a large nonselective public university. Admission to the Honors...

This paper analyzes the effects of assignment to a one-year college preparatory program on academic performance in college. To measure the value added from pre-college programs, we use a large dataset of United States Naval Academy students from the 1988 to 2018 graduating classes, of which a...

A straightforward way of keeping children in school is increasing the duration of compulsory education. Evidence of the impact of this type of policy in Western countries is abundant. However, its effectiveness has been rarely tested in low-income countries. Using panel data of low-income and...

This paper revisits the question of how brain drain affects the optimal education policy of a developing economy. Our framework of analysis highlights the complementarity between public spending on education and students' efforts to acquire human capital in response to career opportunities at...

Can we nudge children, adolescents and their parents to make better decisions on education? And can we nudge teachers to support and encourage better decision making? Education decisions are taken at young ages and involve immediate costs and potential, future benefits. In such settings...