Lifelong learning is increasingly being recognized as a primary factor for knowledge diffusion and productivity growth. However, little economic evidence exists on the economic value of lifelong learning for the individual, especially in developing countries. This paper contributes to remedy...

This paper studies school quality in the context of Norwegian compulsory schooling. I demonstrate that even when lagged achievement is not observed, it is possible to construct informative value-added (VA) indicators of persistent school quality by adjusting exam scores for students' background...

Using the Canadian General Social Survey we compute returns to post-secondary education relative to high-school. Unlike previous research using Canadian data, our dataset allows us to control for ability selection into higher education. We find strong evidence of positive ability selection into...

Holzer and Baum's recent book, 'Making College Work: Pathways to Success for Disadvantaged Students,' provides an excellent up-to-date review of higher education. My review first summarizes its key themes: 1) who gains from college and why? 2) mismatch and the need for more structure; 3) problems...

Mentoring has become an extremely popular policy for improving the retention and performance of new teachers, but we know little about its effects on teacher and student outcomes. I study the impact of mentoring in New York City, which adopted a nationally recognized mentoring program in 2004. I...

In the case of France, we analyse the changes (i) in the skill premium linked to each level of education and (ii) in the impact of parents’ skill and income upon the educational attainment of their children. To this end, we build a theoretical model which is subsequently estimated. Our...

By using a simple (short-cut) method, the private and social rates of return of tertiary and secondary education in Italy between 1989 and 1998 are estimated, as well as the private rates of return for some OECD countries in 1998. The results show that private rates of return, especially for...

In the case of France, we analyse the changes in the wage value of each education level and the impact of parents’ education and income upon the education attainment of children, sons and daughters. We find a critical decline in the skill premium of the Baccalauréat (‘bac’) in relation to...

Considerable effort has been exercised in estimating mean returns to education while carefully considering biases arising from unmeasured ability and measurement error. Some recent work has also attempted to determine whether there are variations from the "mean" return to education across the...

This paper examines linkages between disability and health status and the returns to education and basic skills training. It bases analyses on two separate data sources: wave 3 from the 1993 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the 1992 National Adult Literacy...