This paper presents economic models of child development that capture the essence of recent findings from the empirical literature on skill formation. The goal of this essay is to provide a theoretical framework for interpreting the evidence from a vast empirical literature, for guiding the next...

This paper presents economic models of child development that capture the essence of recent findings from the empirical literature on skill formation. The goal of this essay is to provide a theoretical framework for interpreting the evidence from a vast empirical literature, for guiding the next...

This paper discusses the relationship between education and crime from an economic perspective, developing a human capital-based model that sheds light on key ways in which early childhood programs and policies that encourage schooling may affect both juvenile and adult crime. The paper first...

A growing body of work suggests that education offers a wide-range of benefits that extend beyond increases in labor market productivity. Improvements in education can lower crime, improve health, and increase voting and democratic participation. This chapter reviews recent developments on these...

This paper uses data from the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth cohorts(NLSY79 and NLSY97) to estimate changes in the effects of ability and family income on educational attainment for youth in their late teens during the early 1980s and early 2000s. Cognitive ability plays an...

This paper develops and empirically examines a dynamic model of decisions to work, invest in human capital, and commit crime. By making all three activities endogenous, the model makes a number of new and interesting contributions to the study of crime. First, the model explains why older, more...

The canonical supply-demand model of the wage returns to skill has been extremely influential; however, it has faced several important challenges. Several studies show that the standard approach sometimes produces theoretically wrong-signed elasticities of substitution, yields counterintuitive...

This paper uses new administrative data with detailed borrower information and lengthy repayment histories from the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP) to mea- sure rates of return on undergraduate student loans. We document substantial heterogeneity in returns based on information available at...

The canonical supply-demand model of the wage returns to skill has been extremely influential; however, it has faced several important challenges. Several studies show that the standard approach sometimes produces theoretically wrong-signed elasticities of substitution, yields counterintuitive...