One of the most basic and long-standing problems of economic development policy is how to more effectively promote human capital accumulation. In this essay, Heinrich examines the effectiveness of conditional cash transfer programs designed to increase school attendance in the developing world...

Workers acquire skills through formal schooling, through training provided by governments, and through training provided by firms. This chapter reviews, synthesizes, and augments the literature on the last of these, which has languished in recent years despite the sizable contribution of firm...

This paper presents Gary Becker's approach to conducting creative, empirically fruitful economic research. It describes the traits and methodology that made him such a productive and influential scholar.

This paper considers the sources of skill formation in a modern economy and emphasizes the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive skills in producing economic and social success and the importance of both formal academic institutions and families and firms as sources of learning. Skill...

This paper considers the problem of policy evaluation in a modern society with heterogeneous agents and diverse groups with conflicting interests. Several different approaches to the policy evaluation problem are compared including the approach adopted in modern welfare economics, the classical...