This paper investigates the impacts of teacher characteristics on student performance using a nationally representative and randomly assigned teacher-student sample in China. We find that having a more experienced or female homeroom teacher (HRT) with additional classroom management duties...

How much do schools differ in their effectiveness? Recent studies that seek to answer this question account for student sorting using random assignment generated by central allocation mechanisms or oversubscribed schools. However, the resulting estimates, while causal, may also reflect peer...

This report uses recent economic modelling to relate cognitive skills – as measured by PISA and other international instruments – to economic growth, demonstrating that relatively small improvements to labour force skills can largely impact the future well-being of a nation. The report also...

We examine whether parental and school investments reinforce or compensate for student performance. Our analysis exploits school-starting-age rules in 34 countries, capturing achievement variation that arises because younger children typically underperform their older peers. Parents respond to...

This paper investigates whether international differences in math and science achievement, and specifically the lower US scores, can be explained by school programmatic, institutional, and resource differences after controlling for family SES factors. Using 2006 PISA student-level data for the...