Education and training are a high priority for Costa Rica that devotes to them more than 6.5% of GDP, one of the highest spending shares among OECD countries. However, educational outcomes remain poor and firms struggle to fill their vacancies, particularly in technical and scientific positions,...

This paper provides a new measure of human capital using PISA and PIAAC surveys, and mean years of schooling. The new measure is a cohort-weighted average of past PISA scores (representing the quality of education) of the working age population and the corresponding mean years of schooling...

South Africa has achieved remarkable progress in educational attainment relative to other emerging countries, but the quality of basic education for a large fraction of the Black African population is still very low. This study identifies several hurdles to the upgrading of basic education...

This paper uses a new measure of human capital, which distinguishes both quality and quantity components, to estimate the long-term effect of the COVID-19-related school closures on aggregate productivity through the human capital channel. Productivity losses build up over time and are estimated...

This paper evaluates the link between educational policies and i) student performance and ii) macroeconomic measures of productivity. The analysis has two stages. First, using the 2015 and 2018 PISA databases, it quantifies the relationship between student test scores and the characteristics of...

La situation économique des jeunes n'est pas satisfaisante. Les inégalités scolaires se sont accrues depuis plus d'une décennie, en raison d'une forte baisse des résultats des élèves les plus défavorisés. Le taux de chômage des 20-24 ans n'est pas passé en dessous de 16 % depuis près...

OECD’s PISA publications highlight the impact of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) on students’ results within countries. The focus here is to investigate whether ESCS measures could contribute to differences in aggregate educational outcomes between countries. There is some...

The economic situation of young people is unsatisfactory. Educational inequalities have been widening for over a decade, due to a sharp decline in the results of the most highly disadvantaged students. The unemployment rate for the 20-24 age bracket has not dropped below 16% for nearly 30 years....

The NZ labour market is among the most flexible in the OECD, and outcomes for its young people have been among the best. However, labour-market opportunities are heavily determined by initial education, where New Zealand’s system is also successful and innovative in many ways. Average PISA...

Israel’s education system is complicated by multiple streams at the primary and secondary levels and by military conscription. Population growth and economic expansion have brought a massive increase in demand for all levels of education. Educational attainment statistics are impressive, but...