We try to identify which economic factors might be responsible for the large international differences in student performance. We present time series evidence for a number of European countries which suggests that rising educational expenditures obviously did not improve student performance....

"This paper examines the effect of accumulated human capital, and particularly occupational human capital, on the earnings losses of displaced workers. Unlike most of the previous studies of job displacement, this paper uses a continuous measure of occupational skills transferability to measure...

About 80% of the world's children live in developing countries. Their well-being as adults depends heavily on the education they receive. School enrollment rates have increased dramatically in developing counties since 1960, but many children still leave school at a young age and often learn...

The costs of state and local pension plans have been a source of fiscal stress in many states and communities. This has led legislatures to consider major changes in these plans. In order to assess the fiscal and staffing consequences of plan changes it is important to develop reliable...

The median-voter and budget-maximizing bureaucracy models imply different effects from intergovernmental aid. In this article, the author uses data from an ambitious school district equalization program in Connecticut to test these models. Finding no clear winner in terms of explanatory power,...

Presidential Essay © 2014 Association for Education Finance and Policy