In an effort to improve the quality of schools, governments around the world have dramatically increased the resources devoted to them. By concentrating on inputs and ignoring the incentives within schools, the resources have yielded little in the way of general improvement in student...

Politicians typically focus on short-term economic issues; but, a nation’s long-term economic well-being is directly linked to its rate of economic growth. In turn, its growth rate is directly linked to the economically relevant skills of its population. Until recently, however, economists...

Im Herbst werden die Vereinten Nationen die Nachhaltigen Entwicklungsziele festlegen, die den von 2000–2015 geltenden Millenniums-Entwicklungszielen folgen sollen. Eric A. Hanushek, Stanford University, und Ludger Wößmann, ifo Ins­titut und Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München,...

Decentralization of decision-making is among the most intriguing recent school reforms, in part because countries went in opposite directions over the past decade and because prior evidence is inconclusive. We suggest that autonomy may be conducive to student achievement in well-developed...