In 1975 Theodore W. Schultz suggested that the returns to human capital are highest in economic environments experiencing unexpected price, productivity, and technology shocks that create “disequilibria.” In such environments, the ability of firms and individuals to adapt their resource...

School autonomy and parental participation have been frequently proposed as ways of making schools more productive. Less clear is how governments can foster decentralized decision making by local schools. This article shows that across eight Latin American countries, most of the variation in...