We provide evidence that the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth reflects a causal effect of cognitive skills and supports the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking student achievement across countries, over...

Expanded international data from the PIAAC survey of adult skills allow us to analyze potential sources of the cross-country variation of comparably estimated labor-market returns to skills in a more diverse set of 32 countries. Returns to skills are systematically larger in countries that have...

During the 1980's and early 1990's, the cigarette markets in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand were opened to U.S. cigarettes through actions taken under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act and its subsequent amendments. Using pooled annual time-series data from ten Asian countries, the...