This paper studies a recent British reform that allowed public high schools to opt out of local authority control and become autonomous schools funded directly by the central government. Schools seeking autonomy had only to propose and win a majority vote among current parents. Almost one in...

This paper distinguishes between the human capital and signaling theories by estimating the earnings return to a high school diploma. Unlike most indicators of education (e.g., a year of school), a diploma is essentially a piece of paper and, hence, by itself cannot affect productivity. Any...

In this paper, the authors assert that most studies that have sought to determine the validity of purchasing power parity are flawed for two reasons. First, post-1973 data contain, by definition, only a very limited amount of the low-frequency information relevant for examination of long-run...