This paper presents an evaluation of multiple variants of a commonly used intervention to boost education in developing countries - the conditional cash transfer - with a student level randomization that allows the authors to generate intra-family and peer-network variation. The analysis tests...

This report presents available evidence on adult education and training in Europe and Central Asia (ECA), differentiating two separate types: continuing vocational education and training (CVET) for the employed, sought either by employers or individuals, and retraining and second chance...

Educators believe that they are adequately preparing youth for the labor market while employers lament the lack of skills. A possible source of the mismatch in perceptions is that employers and educators have different understandings of the types of skills valued in the labor market. This paper...

This paper reviews the experience of the Middle East and North Africa region in education attainment over the past four decades (1970-2010). It documents the following main findings: (a) all countries in the region experienced significant improvements in educational attainment over this period;...

Since the development of human capital theory, countless estimates of the economic benefits of investing in education for the individual have been published. While it is a universal fact that in all countries of the world the more education one has the higher his or her earnings, it is...

The paper estimates the rates of return to investment in education in Egypt, allowing for multiple sources of heterogeneity across individuals. The paper finds that, in the period 1998-2006, returns to education increased for workers with higher education, but fell for workers with intermediate...

Rates of return to investments in schooling have been estimated since the late 1950s. In the 60-plus year history of such estimates, there have been several attempts to synthesize the empirical results to ascertain patterns. This paper presents comparable estimates, as well as a database, that...

Training programs mainly address market failures related to lack of skills (technical, cognitive, non-cognitive). This paper conducts a comprehensive review of training programs effectiveness in developing countries. Based on relevant international experiences, the paper highlights key design...

Although there is a general agreement in the literature of the importance of social-emotional skills for labor market success, there is little consensus on the specific skills that should be acquired or how and when to teach them. The psychology, economics, policy research, and program...

This paper reviews the effectiveness and efficiency of key policy instruments for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Based on a simple cross-country regression analysis, the paper argues that average Millennium Development Goal progress is likely to be too slow to meet...