Most studies find little to no effect of classroom computers on student achievement. We suggest that this null effect may combine positive effects of computer uses without equivalently effective alternative traditional teaching practices and negative effects of uses that substitute more...

We study the origins of what has become one of the most radical and encompassing programmes of school reform seen in the recent past amongst advanced countries - the introduction of academy schools to English secondary education. Academies are state schools that are allowed to run in an...

A previous analysis of the impact of formal institutions on the knowledge economy of 22 Middle-Eastern and Sub-Sahara African countries during the 1996-2010 time period concluded that formal institutions were necessary, but inadequate, determinants of the knowledge economy. To extend that study,...

Purpose - Education as a weapon in the fight against conflict and violence remains widely debated in policy and academic circles. Against the background of growing political instability in Africa and the central role of the knowledge economy in 21st century development, this paper provides three...

Purpose- This paper has put a demand-side empirical structure to the hypothesis that foreign aid volatility adversely affects choices to lifelong learning in recipient countries Design/methodology/approach- Lifelong learning is measured as the combined knowledge acquired during primary,...

Education as a tool in the fight against corruption has been subject to much debate in academic and policy making circles. This note extends what we know on this nexus in a threefold manner: namely, in terms of: incremental, lifelong learning and synergy effects. Four main findings are...

While the current empirical literature on peer group effects in schools highlights that credible causal peer effects cannot be estimated unless parental sorting is taken into account, the present paper highlights that causal peer effects might be conditional on the learning environment in which...

This paper investigates how the precision and stability of a teacher's value-added estimate relates to the characteristics of the teacher's students. Using a large administrative data set and a variety of teacher value-added estimators, it finds that the stability over time of teacher...

In this paper we compare the Brazilian tertiary education system to the ones in five well-succeeded countries that have promoted significant efforts to develop their higher education, using 2006 data. The results suggest trade-offs between the goals of access and equity, on the one hand, and of...

In this paper I survey the recent economics of education literature in order to identify which education policies can effectively improve the quality of primary schooling, as measured by pupil test-based achievements. Particular attention is devoted to the experience of England, a country which...