This paper takes a new look at the determinants of cognitive ability. Using the results of the 2006 PISA survey for five Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay) it adopts an efficiency analysis perspective. Rather than selecting as inputs a few variables, it...

Curriculum tracking creates incentives in the years before its start, and we should therefore expect test scores to be higher during those years. I find robust evidence for incentive effects of tracking in the UK based on the UK comprehensive school reform. Results from the Swedish comprehensive...

This paper examines long-term changes in the persistence of overeducation among individual workers, focusing on the relationship between the rate of those changes and the general economic situation. All analyses are based on data from the Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN) conducted throughout the...

This paper analyses occupational matching of immigrants from over seventy countries of origin to 22 European countries. Using European Social Survey for the years 2002–2009, we show that immigrants are more likely to be both under- and overeducated than the native born for the jobs that they...

This paper examines the earnings returns to learning that takes place following the conventional ‘school-to-work’ stage of the life-course. We operationalise such ‘lifelong learning’ as the attainment of certified qualifications in adulthood, following the completion of the first period...