Randomized field experiments designed to better understand the production of human capital have increased exponentially over the past several decades. This chapter summarizes what we have learned about various partial derivatives of the human capital production function, what important partial...

Many studies have documented that a phonics approach is an essential component in the teaching of reading for beginning readers, especially for students at risk of reading disabilities. We study whether phonics approaches, as indicated by the choice of basal readers (materials for the initial...

Covering the full population of applicants to the Jamaican Conditional Cash Transfer Program (PATH), we explore whether receiving PATH benefits alters the academic returns to subsequently attending a more preferred public secondary school. To uncover causal associations, we exploit exogenous...

Covering the full population of applicants to the Jamaican Conditional Cash Transfer Program (PATH), we explore whether receiving PATH since childhood altered the academic gains from attending a more preferred public secondary school. To uncover causal associations, we implement a double...

This paper presents results from a randomized evaluation of a home visiting program for disadvantaged first-time mothers and their families implemented in Germany. 12 months after birth, the intervention increases infants' cognitive development by 0.18 SD. However, the effect fades out after 24...

In this paper, we empirically test the role that religious and political institutions play in the accumulation of human capital. Using a new data set on literacy in colonial India, we find that Muslim literacy is negatively correlated with the proportion of Muslims in the district, although we...

With this paper our objective is to study the effects of different deficit policies in an endogenous growth model with publicly funded human capital accumulation and public debt, where we allow for heterogeneous households. Two types of households are considered. One household acquires human...

In Slovakia, educational outcomes are below the OECD average and are too dependent on the socioeconomic background of students. Unemployment is high and the school-to-job transition process does not work well. Spending on education and active labour market policies are very low by international...

We apply theories of capital market failure to ana1yzeoptima1 financing of risky higher education. In the market solution,students can only finance their education through debt. There isunderinvestment in human capita1, because some students with socia1lyprofitable investments in human capita1...