In every society for which we have data, people's educational achievement is positively correlated with their parents' education or with other indicators of their parents' socio-economic status. This topic is central in social science, and there is no doubt that research has intensified during...

In this Chapter, we critically review the sizable literature that values school quality and performance through housing valuations. While highly variable in terms of research quality, the literature consistently finds housing valuations to be significantly higher in places where measured school...

Thanks to extraordinary and exponential improvements in data storage and computing capacities, it is now possible to collect, manage, and analyze data in magnitudes and in manners that would have been inconceivable just a short time ago. As the world has developed this remarkable capacity to...

The Handbooks in Economics series continues to provide the various branches of economics with handbooks which are definitive reference sources, suitable for use by professional researchers, advanced graduate students, or by those seeking a teaching supplement. With contributions from leading...

This paper reviews some of the econometric methods that have been used in the economics of education. The focus is on understanding how the assumptions made to justify and implement such methods relate to the underlying economic model and the interpretation of the results. We start by...

School accountability--the process of evaluating school performance on the basis of student performance measures--is increasingly prevalent around the world. In the United States, accountability has become a centerpiece of both Democratic and Republican federal administrations' education...

The General Educational Development (GED) credential is issued on the basis of an eight-hour subject-based test. The test claims to establish equivalence between dropouts and traditional high school graduates, opening the door to college and positions in the labor market. In 2008 alone, almost...

This chapter summarizes the recent literature on peer effects in student outcomes at the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary levels. Linear-in-means models find modest sized and statistically significant peer effects in test scores. But the linear-in-means model masks considerable...

Apprenticeship varies greatly across countries, in terms of both quantity (numbers trained) and quality (skill content); and across sectors and occupations within countries, in terms of its provision and finance by employers. This chapter outlines recent advances in both areas. Some firms engage...