It is well-known that there are large disparities in academic achievement between children of different socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. This study examines the evolution of disparities in literacy skills between adults of different SES backgrounds. It compares countries’ patterns in...

Using information on family background, we estimate returns to education, allowing for the heterogeneity of returns. In order to control for the unobserved heterogeneity shared by family members, we construct a siblings sample and employ family fixed-effects and family correlated random-effects...

Studying twelve countries over 30 years, we examine whether women's educational expansion has translated into a closing gender earnings gap. As educational attainment is cohortdependent, an Age-Period-Cohort analysis is most appropriate in our view. Using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data,...

The paper studies the power of educational investments in relation to transfers for fostering lifetime income and for reducing income inequality in Germany. The welfare analysis is based on a model of age-dependent human capital accumulation, featuring dynamic complementarities in skill...