China has made impressive strides in education in recent decades, even though the accumulation of human capital has lagged behind that of physical capital. Going forward, access to and quality of education will be key to sustain economic convergence with the most advanced economies and to offset...

The growth of potential GDP in Mexico is not fast enough to narrow the income gap with other OECD countries at a sufficient pace. The persistent weakness in human capital development contributes to this situation. In particular, Mexicans spend comparatively few years in formal education, and the...

The lack of human capital in Portugal has become a key obstacle to higher growth. This paper discusses the performance of education and training services in Portugal and shows that improvements are needed to narrow the significant human capital gap with other OECD countries. Despite progress in...

This volume was prepared by Benedikt Siegler while working at the Center for the Economics of Education of the Ifo Institute. It was completed in June 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich (LMU) in November 2014. The thesis includes...

Overall, the education system fares well by international comparison. Slovenia has one of the highest shares of the population aged 25 to 64 to have completed at least upper secondary education, and ranks high in international educational achievement tests. Nevertheless, in some areas, reforms...

The federal budget for 2013 and the planning period 2014-2015 has already been given the label ‘anti-social': the rising volume of budget allocations to the ‘guns' brings down that of allocations to ‘butter' – including ‘educational butter.'

Over the past fifty years, elected officials in the name of education reform have promulgated countless policies. Yet the nation continues to face insufficient seats for pre-K kids, and low performance and high dropout rates among older kids. These statistics are harshest for low income and...

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...

Income distribution and the degree of intergenerational mobility is strongly connected to education. Elites emerge and may block students with more innate ability. CEOs sit in the very top echelon of income distribution and benefit from parental and other advantages. They are therefore an...

This paper is the first to use a randomized trial in the US to analyze the short- and long-term educational and employment impacts of an after-school program, the Quantum Opportunity Program, that offered disadvantaged high-school youth: mentoring, educational services, and financial rewards...